wikipedia as a search engine?

My site (with its admittedly strange access patterns) says 47.54%
direct request, 11.45% Google, at least 1.67% cumulative from
Wikipedia, 0.69% Yahoo, 0.26% MSN, 0.10% Ask, and 0.09% for the first
non-search-or-wikipedia referrer.

There are several mysteries here -- the implausible number of direct
requests (from spiders?) the huge gap between Google and everything
else, and the mismatch between my stats and ComScore's numbers (43.7%
Google, 28.8% Yahoo, 12.8% MSN, 5.9% AOL, 5.4% Ask).

But the thing I'm curious about right now is my stats saying that
Wikipedia handily beats every search engine other than Google. Is
Wikipedia really the #2 search engine nowadays?

bob_jenkins (AT) burtleburtle (DOT) net wrote:

My site (with its admittedly strange access patterns) says 47.54%
direct request, 11.45% Google, at least 1.67% cumulative from
Wikipedia, 0.69% Yahoo, 0.26% MSN, 0.10% Ask, and 0.09% for the first
non-search-or-wikipedia referrer.

Which software + version?

There are several mysteries here -- the implausible number of direct
requests (from spiders?)

spiders, other bots, bookmarks, and people who block referers. Probably
the majority is garbage bots.

the huge gap between Google and everything
else,

A lot of people see that I guess.

and the mismatch between my stats and ComScore's numbers (43.7%
Google, 28.8% Yahoo, 12.8% MSN, 5.9% AOL, 5.4% Ask).

Do they include direct requests and Wikipedia?

But the thing I'm curious about right now is my stats saying that
Wikipedia handily beats every search engine other than Google. Is
Wikipedia really the #2 search engine nowadays?

I wouldn't call Wikipedia a SE, but I guess you have some links there, or
a link on a page with a lot of visits. And yes, it's perfectly possible
that *in your case* wikipedia delivers more traffic that all other SEs
except for Google.

--
John Need help with SEO? Get started with a SEO report of your site:

--> http://johnbokma.com/websitedesign/seo-expert-help.html

__/ [ John Bokma ] on Saturday 16 September 2006 18:18 \__

bob_jenkins (AT) burtleburtle (DOT) net wrote:

My site (with its admittedly strange access patterns) says 47.54%
direct request, 11.45% Google, at least 1.67% cumulative from
Wikipedia, 0.69% Yahoo, 0.26% MSN, 0.10% Ask, and 0.09% for the first
non-search-or-wikipedia referrer.

Which software + version?

Could it be like the BBC 'thing'? Wikipedia does not do search, but if no
results are found for a query, I suspect the visitor is referred to Google.
Having just quickly checked this, it no longer appears to be the case (not
sure it ever has been).

There are several mysteries here -- the implausible number of direct
requests (from spiders?)

spiders, other bots, bookmarks, and people who block referers. Probably
the majority is garbage bots.

Yes. It gets worse by the day. Referrer spam, crackers and arbitrary junk
that's stuffed with the aspiration of getting attention through stats.

the huge gap between Google and everything
else,

A lot of people see that I guess.

Yes, but this appears to depend on the nature of the content.

and the mismatch between my stats and ComScore's numbers (43.7%
Google, 28.8% Yahoo, 12.8% MSN, 5.9% AOL, 5.4% Ask).

Do they include direct requests and Wikipedia?

But the thing I'm curious about right now is my stats saying that
Wikipedia handily beats every search engine other than Google. Is
Wikipedia really the #2 search engine nowadays?

I wouldn't call Wikipedia a SE, but I guess you have some links there, or
a link on a page with a lot of visits. And yes, it's perfectly possible
that *in your case* wikipedia delivers more traffic that all other SEs
except for Google.

Wikipedia will be listed as a referrer rather than a search engine, wouldn't
it? Maybe it's to do with the way the stats package interprets the logs.
Wikipedia links can truly drive a lot of traffic these days. 5% of the Net's
traffic is said to be concentrated in that Wiki (Alexa traffic rank ~20),
IIRC. A couple of days ago it was forked, I might as well add. It would be
nice to see large Wikis dominate. This would cull out the heaps of
inaccurate and promotional rubbish out there... until too many shills are
hired to subvert the Wikis (spam?).

Best wishes,

Roy

--
Roy S. Schestowitz | Linux: the most popular, but not most widespread
http://Schestowitz.com | SuSE GNU/Linux ¦ PGP-Key: 0x74572E8E
run-level 5 Jul 20 12:15 last=S
http://iuron.com - help build a non-profit search engine

Roy Schestowitz <newsgroups (AT) schestowitz (DOT) com> wrote:

__/ [ John Bokma ] on Saturday 16 September 2006 18:18 \__

bob_jenkins (AT) burtleburtle (DOT) net wrote:

My site (with its admittedly strange access patterns) says 47.54%
direct request, 11.45% Google, at least 1.67% cumulative from
Wikipedia, 0.69% Yahoo, 0.26% MSN, 0.10% Ask, and 0.09% for the
first non-search-or-wikipedia referrer.

Which software + version?


Could it be like the BBC 'thing'? Wikipedia does not do search, but if
no results are found for a query, I suspect the visitor is referred to
Google. Having just quickly checked this, it no longer appears to be
the case (not sure it ever has been).

IIRC you're right: when (again IIRC) the load was heavy Wikipedia used
Google. But WikiMedia comes with a search but it's not an SE.

There are several mysteries here -- the implausible number of direct
requests (from spiders?)

spiders, other bots, bookmarks, and people who block referers.
Probably the majority is garbage bots.

Yes. It gets worse by the day. Referrer spam, crackers and arbitrary
junk that's stuffed with the aspiration of getting attention through
stats.

Yup, I have plans to put some time into it and see if I can reduce the
garbage.

I wouldn't call Wikipedia a SE, but I guess you have some links
there, or a link on a page with a lot of visits. And yes, it's
perfectly possible that *in your case* wikipedia delivers more
traffic that all other SEs except for Google.

Wikipedia will be listed as a referrer rather than a search engine,
wouldn't it? Maybe it's to do with the way the stats package
interprets the logs.

Yup, my guess, hence the question what software and version is used.

--
John Need help with SEO? Get started with a SEO report of your site:

--> http://johnbokma.com/websitedesign/seo-expert-help.html

John Bokma wrote:

bob_jenkins (AT) burtleburtle (DOT) net wrote:

My site (with its admittedly strange access patterns) says 47.54%
direct request, 11.45% Google, at least 1.67% cumulative from
Wikipedia, 0.69% Yahoo, 0.26% MSN, 0.10% Ask, and 0.09% for the first
non-search-or-wikipedia referrer.

Which software + version?

Webalizer 2.0.1. http://burtleburtle.net/webstats. Yes, Wikipedia is
listed as a referrer rather than a search engine. It just strikes me
as behaving like a search engine.

I wouldn't call Wikipedia a SE, but I guess you have some links there, or
a link on a page with a lot of visits. And yes, it's perfectly possible
that *in your case* wikipedia delivers more traffic that all other SEs
except for Google.

Definitely true in my case, but the question is, is everyone else
seeing the same thing.

Roy said:

Wikipedia links can truly drive a lot of traffic these days. 5% of the Net's
traffic is said to be concentrated in that Wiki (Alexa traffic rank ~20),

I see from Alexa that quite a few sites (including search engines
Yahoo, Google, and MSN) are ranked higher than Wikipedia, so it looks
like my case is not very representative.