Introduction
Hey and welcome to the first, mega-definitive guide to self-publishing your very own Wikipedia page. My name is Nikolas Lemmel and I’m the team-lead at a boutique digital agency by the name of Maximatic Media. In this guide, I’m gonna try to provide an in-depth overview of what we’ve learned about creating and stabilizing “stickied” Wikipedia pages thus far as a company. If you have any experience with either of the components I’ll be mentioning or would like to share one that we’ve yet to cover, please feel free to comment down below. Without further ado, let’s get into it!
Page Stickiness
Let’s start this journey by first recognizing the weird word I’ve used in the introduction: “stickied”. This is a word you’ll see appear often the deeper dive into the Wikipedia publishing world.
The concept of “stickiness” in the context of Wikipedia publishing has to do with the longevity and resilience of a newly published Wikipedia page. Wikipedia is an open-source platform that relies on volunteer editors to maintain the quality of content on the site. These editors follow a set of guidelines to decide what content is notable and reliable enough to appear on Wikipedia.
When a new page is created, it undergoes scrutiny from higher-tier editors and admins, who assess whether the page meets Wikipedia’s stringent notability and reliability criteria. If they decide that it doesn’t, the page can be deleted or heavily revised, oftentimes within a matter of days from its publishing date. This constant monitoring and removal process is part of Wikipedia’s commitment to maintaining a high-quality, reliable source of information and minimizing the extent to which Wikipedia is used in an advertorial fashion.
Stickiness, therefore, refers to the ability of a new page to withstand this scrutiny and remain live on the site. A stickied page is one that has been well-constructed, sufficiently sourced with credible references, and clearly meets the notability requirements. The page not only gets published but also stays published, or “sticks.”
Now, this may already be common knowledge to the bulk of you that are actively researching Wikipedia page creation for your brand. However, since we’ve launched our service, we’ve dealt with a lot of clientele who have attempted to create a Wikipedia page for themselves in the past and were hit with this harsh reality check. An alarming percentage of those cases fell prey to freelancers or companies specializing in Wikipedia publishing that charged them anywhere between $600 – $2000 to draft and publish a Wikipedia page, knowing full well that there was absolutely zero chance that the page would actually remain on Wikipedia. Not an outright scam, mind you, but very much bordering on one in my point of view.
The truth of the matter is that 95% of entities seeking a Wikipedia page do not truly warrant one and this statement is corroborated by Wikipedia’s own statistic, stating that a mind-boggling 98% of newly published pages get nominated for deletion. So how do we combat these ridiculously low odds? Well, let’s delve into what’s arguably the biggest factor of all when it comes to page stickiness:
Notability
So diving right into the nitty-gritty of Wikipedia Publishing, we must first cover the concept of notability – the most important aspect out of all of the points I’ll be covering in this guide. Notability in the context of Wikipedia simply means how often reputable, secondary sources are referencing you in their media output. Said references come in many forms, whether it be a full feature article, a short bio in a listicle or just a basic citation. However, not all references are made equal. Some references carry significantly more weight than others, either due to its “comprehensiveness” (i.e. a full feature article with the sole focus being on you) or the “reputability” of the source doing the referencing (i.e. mentioned in Forbes vs mentioned in “Biznes-News-Blog”).
Comprehensiveness
Let’s first delve into the topic of comprehensiveness. The comprehensiveness of your reference can be calculated by just a couple factors: the word count of the article, the keyword density of your entity’s name within said article and whether the entity is being referenced in the title/headline of the article. These three components determine the significance laid upon the entity by the reporting outlet. The more extensive the coverage, the higher the significance in the eyes of Wikipedia (i.e. a full-feature, 750-word article on Forbes vs a 150 word entry in “Top 30 E-Commerce Businesses of 2023” listicle on Forbes).
Reputability
Now that we’ve covered what I mean by “comprehensiveness”, let’s talk about the other component influencing the power of your media coverage: reputability. The concept of reputability is basically as straightforward as it gets. Just about any semi-famous news or media outlet that you can think of is viewed as a “reputable” source by Wikipedia. The likes of Forbes, Mashable, USA Today, etc are all stellar examples of significant coverage that corroborates you or your brand as a notable entity in the eyes of Wikipedia. However, a full feature article on each of those aforementioned sites costs $15,000, $2,400 and $6,500 respectively. If you as an entity see no utility in being featured on these media outlets beyond simply meeting the eligibility criteria for a Wikipedia page, it makes little sense to purchase those placements.
The Role of Domain Authority
This is where a more esoteric metric comes into play: Domain Authority. A DA score is effectively a ranking assigned to a domain which we can use to assess any given site’s authority in comparison to the rest of the web. It is calculated using the domain’s age, the amount of other sites referring to it and the reputability of said referrals. Basically the same criteria influencing the site’s probability of getting their own stickied Wiki page but quantified by a score from 1 to 100. Now let’s return back to three examples of reputable media outlets I’ve given above: Forbes, Mashable and USA Today. Forbes has a DA score of 95, Mashable has a DA score of 92 and USA Today has a DA score of 94. So all in all, all three publications are highly renowned, outpacing the vast majority of other sites on the web with scores of 90 and above. However, if referring back to the pricing of each placement, we see a pretty drastic incongruence with the value derived from each media outlet in the context of GKP creation. Forbes, despite being one measly basis point off of USA Today’s DA score, carries more than a 200% higher price tag. Now sure, Forbes has a significantly higher readership and holds far more clout than USA Today but if focusing solely on its impact in the context of a Wikipedia reference, it really doesn’t warrant the price you pay for it when compared to other viable alternatives.
And these are just the three sites we’ve mentioned so far. Take a look at the following spreadsheet containing 400+ available media placements and keep an eye on the DA column:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1SX7bI0YSZeJCWwxaMEZ1LG-QtoiLFnDVJZjW1n-ZvQ0/edit?usp=sharing
As you scroll through, you’ll find that there are a plethora of Google-News-Approved sites that have a relatively high DA despite costing a fraction of what the internationally distinguished media outlets cost. Sites like Village Voice, HackerNoon, Times of Malta, Chiang Rai Times, etc. Now granted, they don’t exactly pack the same sort of punch that Forbes does but in the context of a Wikipedia page, you are considerably better off securing five B-tier placements in comparison to a singular A tier placement. So long as you are not cheaping out by opting for “Biznes-News-Blog” as your referring source and stick to Google-News-Approved publications, a varied list of reputable placements within your references section will take you much further than just one extremely reputable citation.
Reliability
Now that we’ve extensively covered the topic of notability, let’s talk about a factor of media assessment that is unique to Wikipedia: Reliability. Reliability is Wikipedia’s way of determining how trustworthy the source of incoming information is. It’s one of the only ORM services that views this factor as being separate from notability, which makes the process of selecting publications a bit more complex.
As a PR agency, we deal with a lot of ORM requests ranging from Google Knowledge Panels to Wikipedia Publishing to Social Media Verifications on platforms like Instagram, Facebook, TikTok and Youtube. Theoretically, say that we receive a client seeking to get verified on all social platforms, get a GKP and get a Wikipedia page published about them. All in all, the works. Let’s say that they also came to us with a decent bit of pre-existing media coverage and have full feature articles about them published on the Daily Mail, Newsweek, RT News, OK Magazine and E! News.
Now, in the context of GKP Creation and Social Media Verification, we would notify this imaginary client that we are prepared to move forward with their case and are relatively optimistic about their probability of success. Given that their PR stems from highly recognizable publications with DAs in the high 80s/90s, there is little reason to suspect that they’d get rejected on the basis of notability. However, when it comes to Wikipedia, we unfortunately would have to reject this case and I’ll explain why. Despite the fact that each of those publications is considered notable by Wikipedia’s standards (which more or less follow the same criteria as Google and Meta mind you), not a single one of those listed outlets is viewed as a trustworthy source by Wikipedia. Newsweek is viewed as a biased news reporter, RT News is viewed as propagandized and state-run media, and Daily Mail, OK Mag and E! News are all considered low-quality, tabloid-like sources of information. Creating a Wikipedia page with only these articles as citations is basically a guaranteed nomination for deletion waiting to happen.
This is largely why, when purchasing press for Wikipedia, you want to stick to media outlets that are independent, journalistic sources with a good reputation behind them. So going back to the spreadsheet of PR placements, sites like Times of Malta and Chiang Rai Times are good examples of reputable, independent news sites that meet the notability criteria whilst remaining relatively affordable. The cream of the crop, however, would be publications like Wisconsin State Journal, Arizona Daily Star, Sacramento Bee, Miami Herald, etc. Localized, independent news sources that have a significant amount of authority within their local domains while having an international readership similar to that of the NYT and Chicago Tribune.
Lastly, let’s talk about press releases from reputable sites like Yahoo, Bloomberg, Business Insider, etc. Wikipedia views press releases, especially those bought from press release aggregators, with a measure of suspicion, considering them as ‘purchased’ content. Purchasing these is really like blowing money down the drain since these can only be used as secondary sources. Stay away from these and stick only to editorial articles — those written by the staff of the publication and not distributed through the plethora of press release services out there.
The Question of Quantity
A pretty common question we get asked in our Wikipedia publishing consultations with clients is what amount of references guarantees a stickied page. What is the absolute minimum that I can get away with? And truth be told, we honestly have a hard time answering this question as we don’t truly know. Without foreseeing the future and knowing which admin gets assigned to review the page and what their opinion is on each referring publication, it is impossible to predict the actual amount. In our experience of creating Wikipedia pages over the last couple of years, we’ve found no shortage of BS reasons given for rejecting a specific source. The way Wikipedia is organized, it really just comes down to luck. We’ve witnessed a client get a stickied page with just five references and we’ve also witnessed a client get their page deleted with upwards of 15 strong references.
Having said that though, if taking into account the median number of references across all of our successful cases, a good benchmark to aim for would be roughly 6 semi-strong, corroborating references with a DA of 75 and above. Again, this number is not set-in-stone and may vary contingent on the entity (living persons oftentimes given more leniency than corporate brands) but six is basically the optimal zone. In the event an admin decides to reject one of the citations, the page still has five other references to fall back on, making it difficult to argue a lack of notability within a nomination vote. But if you really wanna take your chances, three strong references is the absolute minimum. Just be aware that you are fully at the mercy of the admin in this scenario.
“Veteran” Editor Accounts
Now that we have finally finished covering the most important factor impacting your Wiki page’s stickiness, let’s move onto what is likely the 2nd most important factor: the Wiki account doing the publishing. Let’s imagine for a second that we have a ready-to-go Wikipedia article that is well-constructed, worded in an objective, non-advertorial manner and contains plenty of citations from reputable sources verifying each and every piece of factual information within the article. Now, let’s imagine that we take this exact same article, word-for-word and publish it from two separate editor accounts. One of those accounts has been around for 7+ years and has made 3,000+ edits across various existing pages alongside the 300+ pages they’ve created and published themselves. The other account was registered three days ago, has zero experience editing other people’s entries, and their very first edit is about to be a brand new page that very few people ever heard of, despite how well-cited it may be.
Assuming they both publish the exact same content, word-for-word with the same references section, who do you think will receive more scrutiny over the brand new page from admins? The guy who’s been around for close to a decade and has a historical track record of quality contributions? Or the guy who literally just made an account on Wikipedia and decided that publishing a page about a little-known entity is a good first step in his life-long Wikipedia journey?
I think that’s really all that can be said about this topic as it’s quite straightforward. Aged accounts with a history of edits simply tend to be more trusted when it comes to new page creation than accounts that are brand new. If you have a semi-strong page with somewhat questionable references, the reputation and history of the editor doing the publishing can be the thing that nudges it over the edge of acceptance.
That’s partially why we charge $1,500 for our Wikipedia publishing service. No one should pay fifteen hundred bucks to write a 400 word entry about their brand, that’s obscene. You pay for the privilege of being published by a somewhat renown Wikipedia editor, minimizing the degree to which your entry elicits suspicion and thus, maximizing your chances of success.
Drafting the Page
Now that we’ve covered the two most important aspects influencing your page’s stickiness probability, let’s move onto the last and arguably, least important factor out of them all: the actual writing. Now don’t get me wrong, a poorly written page is still very much a massive red flag when entering the sandbox stage. However, the knowledge required to write an objective, Wikipedia-compliant page is far more prevalent and less clandestine than the knowledge required to make the entity eligible for one.
Just read about a dozen or so pages on living persons and emulate the language and writing style used by the editors to the best degree you can. Assuming that you are a native speaker and don’t have any glaring grammatical errors within your writing, nine times out of ten, the page ends up being eligible for publishing. We’ve had plenty of clients write their own pages that required little to no editing on our side prior to being published.
There’s not much I can add to this that hasn’t already been covered by Wikipedia themselves (which you can read on this link here:). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Biographies_of_living_persons
Aside from the common tidbits of knowledge such as not using promotional language or writing in an informal tone, my one piece of unorthodox advice is to not go overboard with the length of the article. The shorter your page is, the lower the attack surface. The best pages are those that have just a couple of paragraphs in them, ranging between 200 and 350 words. The longer your page is, the higher the chances that you may get flagged for some factoid that didn’t get referenced enough within the sources you’ve cited to be considered “factually verifiable”.
Keep it to a minimum and only write about things that are easily fact-checked and warrant being on Wikipedia. Beyond that, just refer to Wikipedia’s own guidelines for written content and read a couple of pages for a quick inspo-sesh.
Conclusion
Given that we’ve covered each aspect of Wikipedia creation worth mentioning, let’s do a brief overview given that this post ended up being far longer than I had initially anticipated. We’ve dug deep into the nitty-gritty world of Wikipedia publishing, dissected the perplexing idea of “stickiness”, navigated through the labyrinth of notability, comprehensiveness, reputability, and reliability, and peered into the halls of “Veteran” editor accounts.
So, let’s summarize what we’ve learned. Wikipedia’s demanding notability and reliability criteria mean you can’t simply grab any media coverage and hope it sticks. Quality over quantity, friends. Be discerning in your source selection, aim for varied, reputable sources, and steer clear of low-quality, biased outlets. You need to be strategic and smart about it. A Wikipedia page isn’t a walk in the park, it’s a marathon, demanding preparation, skill, and persistence.
Never forget the importance of the account that does the publishing. An aged, trusted account can make the difference between sailing through or sinking like a stone. And remember, Wikipedia is not a billboard. It’s not about shouting your brand or achievements from the rooftops, it’s about providing an unbiased, informative, well-referenced and worthwhile contribution to the collective human knowledge.
Hopefully, y’all found this article to be useful and a good introduction into the world of Wikipedia publishing. If you are ever in need of a team of specialists to outsource the entirety of your Wikipedia objectives to, please check out our Wikipedia Publishing Service page or reach out to us directly at support@maximaticmedia.com. Thanks for reading!