Google Knol: What are the Marketing and Optimization Implications?

Google has recently announced a new service they intend to offer to the online masses. It is called Google Knol (a "Knol" is their word for a "unit of knowledge") and it is being seen and described as a direct competitor to the widely used and highly ranked Wikipedia. In recent years Wikipedia entries for any number of topics can be found in the top or Google's search engine results, which naturally leads to huge amounts of traffic.

Traffic that goes to pages that very conspicuously do not contain any of Google's ads. Google is, of course, drawing criticism for this new offering. Then again, Google would probably draw criticism if they managed to develop a clean burning alternative to fossil fuels.

But in this case they are drawing fire from the Internet community in general and the marketing community in particular. This is not a new criticism, however. With the acquisition of services like Blogger and YouTube, Google has been slowly but surely moving away from their original goal of simply indexing the world's content to providing it. Many are pointing out the inherent conflict of interest here. Google naturally claims that they will not attempt to edit or verify the articles, or Knols, nor will they give any special weight to the Knols simply because they are hosted by Google.

Nevertheless, there are many, many businesses out there that depend on search traffic for their business and livelihood. The thought that a search engine might be introducing system that may or may not have a significant skewing effect on what should theoretically be impartial results. If Google can turn Knol into the preferred social knowledge site and generate the kind of traffic that Wikipedia does, that will mean countless visitors that will be subjected to Google's ads. Given that opportunity, is it any wonder that people would be skeptical about claims that deny the existence of preferred content?

So if Google Knol takes off, what does that mean for the marketing community? Is this going to be a new platform for marketers to employ? Or will it be something that changes the way we do our normal online marketing?

A lot of that will depend on a few things. Early on in Wikipedia history it was a popular target for Internet marketers, until it started using the "no follow" tags in their outbound links. So suddenly it was less attractive from an SEO standpoint, though some still attempt to use it for the traffic it could generate. (Although overt marketing and advertising attempts will get you banned from the service.) So the first question will be whether or not Knol allows an author to include outbound links that will enhance the rankings of off-page websites.

But regardless, there is more to online marketing than gathering links. There is also branding and building trust and/or notoriety within your individual industries. And some of the features of Knol might provide the opportunity to do so.

One of the major differences between Wikipedia and Google Knol is that Knol focuses on highlighting the authors, as compared to the anonymous collaboration model of Wikipedia. By doing so they are hoping to create a sense of responsibility and credibility that their competition doesn't share. The opportunity here is to establish oneself as the specialist in that area.

Where Wikipedia allowed open access to an article for the community to edit or update, that won't be the case for Knols. Instead of a group effort on a single article, Google plans to have any number of articles (Knols) on the same topic. They seem to assume that the most relevant, authoritative, or popular articles will naturally float to the top of the heap.

So here is a new thought. As search engine marketers are we going to find ourselves optimizing and developing campaigns for single articles? The thought of optimizing a Wikipedia entry would plausibly make one laugh. Why would you optimize it? What would be the point? It's just information. And it ranks fine for what it is. Who cares if it ranks higher than another similar entry?

This won't be the case with Knols. If a Google Knol is all about authoritative authoring, and if the most authoritative articles are supposed to float to the top, how long before optimization techniques determine authority?

If, indeed, optimization tactics can have this sort of effect, how badly will that damage the supposed credibility they're trying to create? Will Google be ready for something like that? Will the inherent branding and traffic benefits be enough to justify SEO on a Knol?

Only time will tell.

Andy Eliason is a writer at Main10, an Internet marking and development firm. They offer a range of SEO services that evolve as the Internet marketplace changes.