Wikipedia needs no introduction. You will be hard-pressed to search Google for any term and not see Wikipedia in the top 10 results. It is a testament to the popularity of the platform. But are Wikipedia links still relevant today? Yes, without a doubt – Wikipedia backlinks still have the same power they’ve always had! And as one of the oldest and most prominent websites on the web, a backlink from Wikipedia can easily change the fortunes of your website. In this article, learn how to get Wikipedia links and boost your site’s authority and visibility.
Why do you need Wikipedia links?
Before we can discuss how to get a Wikipedia link, let us talk about why we need backlinks from Wikipedia links. When you do a search for any term, chances are you’ll see Wikipedia at the top of the list. It’s an incredibly respected website, and getting links from it serves as a big vote of confidence for your own site. Google loves to see links from Wikipedia, and they should since the site is so heavily moderated. Having your site linked from a Wikipedia page is like having your own natural backlink-generating machine! Not only do you get the added benefit of a backlink, but you’ll also get additional links from other websites looking to use your site as a reference. This makes the time you spend creating a Wikipedia page totally worth it, as it’s a great way to generate natural, quality backlinks.
How to Get Wikipedia Link and Boost Your Site’s Authority
Apply as a contributor:
The first step is to start as a contributor in order to build your reputation among other Wikipedians. Start by creating a contributor account! It’s essential to use a personal email address while opening your account. If you use a business email, it will not look like you’re a neutral body when you try to make changes to articles related to your industry. Just fill out the form, and click on the blue “Submit Your Account” button. Once you’ve been approved, log in to your account, and you’ll see a screen similar to the screenshot below: 
Take time to learn the rules:
Wikipedia has stringent guidelines for contributors, and you must adhere to them to achieve your goal. Unfortunately, violating any of these rules will result in your account getting closed. Therefore, you can’t just jump into Wikipedia and start adding links to your blog! That said, below are some of the things you should always avoid as a Wikipedia contributor:
- Resist the temptation to write about the things you or your friends just remembered. Focus on writing informative and educative articles.
- Free content is not allowed, including copyrighted content.
- Images must be appropriately referenced and big enough to showcase relevant details.
- All external links should be minimal and relevant.
Click here to learn more about all their rules. The goal of being a Wikipedia contributor is to improve the quality of all Wikipedia entries. And while the purpose of signing up as a contributor is to build links to your site, your intention will have to wait, at least for now.
Build your authority as an editor:
For now, find Wikipedia articles that are not in your main niche that contain slight errors. You can just start by making corrections on typos and proceed to add citations and content to articles. Ideally, work on topics that get less traffic to avoid dealing with aggressive editors. All these will help you to master Wikipedia, gain a credible reputation, and help you achieve your link-building goal. Being a Wikipedia contributor can indeed be a lot of fun, especially once you start getting used to it and contribute a bunch of stuff related to your niche/industry. Ever wondered why lots of people volunteer to become a Wikipedia contributors even when they don’t get paid for it? It’s because of the reasons below: 
- A desire to share knowledge: Many people feel a strong desire to share their knowledge with others, and contributing to Wikipedia is a way to do so. They enjoy the satisfaction of knowing that their contributions can help others learn and understand new things.
- A sense of community: Wikipedia has a strong community of volunteers who work together to create and maintain the site. Contributing to Wikipedia can give people a sense of belonging to a community of like-minded individuals who share a common goal.
- Improving skills: Contributing to Wikipedia can help people improve their research, writing, and editing skills. It can also provide an opportunity to learn new things and expand their knowledge.
Enter your organization as an entry:
Once you have built enough clout as a contributor and you’re contributing to the topics that are of interest to you, you can now start adding new articles. One of the few things you can do at this stage is to start posting articles that are highly relevant to your business or brand. Apart from that, you can equally post articles about yourself and your brand if you have some significant news citations to validate your inclusion in Wikipedia. The best way to introduce an entry on your organization is to ask someone else to create the entry and write half of the text or more. This is because writing the entry yourself and posting it will make it seem like self-promotion. Yet, you cannot possibly wait for some entirely neutral person to notice your brand and write an entry on you. Another way is to suggest an article to another Wikipedia contributor based on authoritative citations and achievements of your brand – and once the article is live, you can then add whatever modifications you like. Finally, it’s worth mentioning that, before you can get an entry into your organization, you must have passed the notability test. Ensure that you have a collection of notable citations about your brand achievements to prove that your business has enough credibility to appear on Wikipedia.
Find and replace dead links:
While it may be hard to get direct links from articles on Wikipedia, you can actually get links in the references. The best approach is to locate dead links or content that requires a citation and then offer content that offers a live citation for the needed information. Typically, when a link is dead on Wikipedia, it’ll label it with the “dead link” tag.
Steps to find dead links on Wikipedia through Google
Using Google to get Wikipedia backlinks and even Dead Links can be done easily, especially if you follow the following steps: Step 1: Open Google and enter the advanced search query in the search box. You can use the query: site:wikipedia.org “Keyword phrase” “dead link” Step 2: After running the advanced query, a list of results, including Dead Link, Link Rot, etc., will be displayed in front of you. Click on any one of the pages, and once it opens, use the Ctrl+F shortcut to find the Dead Link on the page. 
And if a citation is required for information in an article, Wikipedia will also label it with the “citation needed” tag. Interestingly, Wikipedia has a page that lists all the articles with dead links – and you can select an article that’s relevant to your niche from the list. Once you’ve found a relevant article, perform a search for “citation needed” or “dead.” This will display any links that are dead or where editors feel need citations. Furthermore, find content on your site that would be an excellent replacement for the dead links or provide the proper citation that is required, and make the edit. Or just suggest the citation to see what other Wikipedians think. However, if you can’t find relevant content on your site to replace the dead link, you can equally create the content immediately. Finally, the Wayback Machine tool will help you to figure out what that page used to look like – so you can see what your new content should be about to adequately cover the old citation.
Conclusion
When it comes to link building, a critical thing Google evaluates is the links from large authority sites such as Wikipedia. Wikipedia is a reliable resource that’s highly trusted because of its strict views on spam, making them perfect for SEO. To get the highest possible result from Wikipedia, treat it with seriousness, and avoid spamming of any sort. Your goal is not just to drop a link, and that will be all. Instead, you’re there to build solid relationships and help create better pages for the website. Wikipedia SEO can be a nice addition to your SEO reporting if you’re doing work for clients or for your own projects.
