How Much do YOU Knol?

Yesterday, Google officially launched Google Knol (officially beta of course). In case you don’t know what Google Knol is about, here’s the explanation:

Knols are authoritative articles about specific topics, written by people who know about those subjects ... millions of people know useful things and billions more could benefit from that knowledge. Knol will encourage these people to contribute their knowledge online and make it accessible to everyone.

OK, so isn’t this just a Google version of Wikipedia?

Well no. There are supposedly 2 major differences:

1. Everything written has an author (or authors). It’s his or her knowledge, opinion, whatever. You can’t change what’s been written (unless you get the author to agree), but you can comment on it.
2. It isn’t philanthropic….
   As Google states: At the discretion of the author, a knol may include ads from our AdSense program. If an author chooses to include ads, Google will provide the author with a revenue share from the proceeds of those ad placements.

So, I went to have a look at my favourite topics.

Want to guess what they were?

Of course, it shouldn’t be very difficult – SEO, QA and Testing, Blogging, Photography, Travel …

And what did I find?

Well, if you want to know about Kosher Wine (now I really must comment on that one …), head lice (don’t get me onto that subject, PLEASE!), or how to un-clog a toilet, you’ll have so much to read, that I’ll never get you back here

But what about those topics that I (and I hope you) are REALLY interested in?

Well … using the Knol search box, I found ONE, yes ONE, measly Knol on SEO. Actually, it wasn’t measly, it was very good. It was Danny Sullivan‘s excellent list of Firefox plugins for SEO and SEM, which is getting longer as each commenter adds his or her list – great idea.

Now I Knowl (please excuse the pun) that there is more on SEO there, because I also found Moose’s Knols about SEO, the SEO Knols Group (loads and loads and loads of SEO tools), and his comments on Aharon Wall’s very good SEO Basics.

But whichever way you look at it, it took me ages to find these, and that is just by wading through link after link, mainly from the comments.

And what about the others, you are asking?

NADA, Nothing, Zilch, כלום (that’s pronounced Klum, as in Heidi), Rien ….

So, either Google Knols has a big, big, bug in their search, AND / OR there’s plenty of scope for all of you to start writing huge numbers of Knols about basically anything you want  …

On the other hand, it looks like Knol topics are doing amazingly well on Google …

So, who’s going to join me in Collaborating on QA and Testing?

Anyone for SEO?

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July 24th, 2008 by debizyx
Posted in State of the Art
Tags: Blogging, bugs, Google Knol, photography, QA, SEO, Testing, travel, Wikipedia 15 Comments »

15 Responses

1. Omar Abid on July 24th, 2008 Says:

   Cool information, like it

2. Moose on July 24th, 2008 Says:

   Thanks for adding our SEO Knol to your list Debi! Feel free to add any tools we may have missed on our list.

3. Debi'z SEO on July 24th, 2008 Says:

   Thanks, Omar. Glad you like it.

4. Debi'z SEO on July 24th, 2008 Says:

   A pleasure, Moose

5. phonecardscollector on July 25th, 2008 Says:

   Nice info, maybe I should write something on knol before someone took the topic

6. Debi'z SEO on July 25th, 2008 Says:

   Hi there, Peter G.
   I don’t think you need to rush – your niches are pretty unique. But I think it wouldn’t be a bad idea.
   I’m trying to work out what to write that isn’t going to take too much time away from my real job!
   Cheers

7. mscot on July 25th, 2008 Says:

   Let’s go for some testing. this seem like a great opportunity to get in on the ground floor to drive some traffic. I will write about philosophy, philology, psychology, art and design, poetry and fishing. Who wants to take Mathematics ?

   Great Post Thanks

8. Debi'z SEO on July 25th, 2008 Says:

   Not me for maths ….

   Thanks mscot, I’ll be waiting for the art and design knols

9. A Test Case on Knol and the Blogging Idol « Debi’Z Blog on July 25th, 2008 Says:

   [...] 25, 2008 · No Comments According to Google, Knol’s are not going to be favoured in Google [...]

10. A Test Case on Knol, SEO, and the Blogging Idol « Debi’Z Blog on July 25th, 2008 Says:

    [...] 25, 2008 · No Comments According to Google, Knol’s are not going to be favoured in Google [...]

11. mscot on July 30th, 2008 Says:

    I have added my first page on design basics to knol I am curious to see what happens. let me know what you think will you. Critiques welcome.
    http://knol.google.com/k/m-scot-mohler/graphic-design-101/1h7l9wu4twe0r/2#

12. Debi'z SEO on July 30th, 2008 Says:

    Hi mscot,
    Nice basic knol.
    One small comment – at the end of point 1 you write “this brings us to the third rule”. I think you probably meant “second”.

    Personally, I don’t think you’ll hit the top 10 in Google, because you’ve done “real” writing, i.e. not optimized. Also, not a lot of text for the search engines to work out what it’s all about.

    My Blogging Idol Knol was more optimized, but it has been dropping down the rankings, rather than going up. I believe that the main reason is that other sites (blogs mainly) are continuing to write about the blogging idol, whereas my Knol is static. As far as I can tell, all the other test cases on Knol positions in Google were about subjects that are pretty static.

    Good luck, anyway.

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