In cases where there is a conflict between wiki names, we will be making subdomain changes. No editor or admin preparation is required for these changes. The process will begin with a test batch of wikis migrating later this month, a monitoring period to confirm the SEO impact, as well as improvements to our migration process and then the remainder of the wikis migrating in early 2021. We are also working on ways to better recommend wikis based on interests, as announced last year.įor these reasons, we made the decision to move Gamepedia wikis to Fandom URLs. Additionally, the average fan is 2.5 times more likely to know what Fandom is, compared to Gamepedia, based on market research of comparative brand awareness we performed this spring with surveys to Fandom and Gamepedia readers and editors. Even prior to Fandom and Curse merging, Curse was beginning to explore the possibility of expanding beyond just Gamepedia for wikis, recognizing the potential of a broader approach (think Animepedia or Moviepedia). Even though gaming is nearly half of our traffic, association with non-gaming content of interest to fans is huge for surfacing gaming wikis in search results. Fandom encompasses the universe of fan interests, including but not just limited to video games. Part of the reason why Fandom does better with SEO than Gamepedia is the difference in size and the breadth of the platform and brand, AKA brand strength. You can see that illustrated in the graph on the right: It will take testing to know for sure, but we expect similar results for Gamepedia and Fandom domains. That migration continues to undo the damage of Google’s major 2018 algorithm change, which disfavored the Wikia domain while favoring Fandom. For context, with the to domain migrations in 2018, we saw the test communities begin to gain search authority and ranking within 8 weeks. The initial migration tests will help us narrow down that number, become more exact over time, and understand the associated traffic impact. With these algorithm changes happening about 4 times a year, Gamepedia wikis could lose up to 40% search visibility in 2021 or gain up to 70% visibility by migrating to Fandom URLs. How changes to it affect Fandom and Gamepedia wikis is not fully understood, but what we do know is that brand strength and domain unity can protect wikis from SEO drops and lead to SEO benefits. The algorithm at Google is one they hold as a very closely guarded secret. On average, each algorithm change results in a visibility decrease of up to 10% for Gamepedia wikis and a visibility increase of up to 18% for Fandom wikis. Even before the merger of these two platforms, the Gamepedia team noticed that changes to Google’s search algorithm seemed to hurt Gamepedia wikis, while Fandom wikis did better. It is of vital importance for wikis, since 90% of overall wiki traffic comes from Google searches. SEO, as a reminder, is the process of improving the quality and quantity of traffic to web pages through search engine results. We’ve been digging deep into the SEO of Fandom and Gamepedia over the last two years. For now this only impacts the domain, and is separate work to the design changes that will come in the next phase of the Unified Community Platform (UCP), some of which we’ll start to cover at the end of this announcement. To confirm the expected scope of the SEO impact, including its impact on incoming traffic, we will be doing a test migration of a few dozen wikis in a few weeks. Migrating the domain is an action we are taking to resolve the risk, preempt future losses, recover some of that lost visibility, and then perhaps even grow the discoverability of your content on Gamepedia. With an average of four changes per year, the total annual loss of visibility for Gamepedia wikis is staggering, making it harder for your content on Gamepedia to find an audience. On average, each change Google has made has reduced visibility for Gamepedia wikis by up to 10%, while boosting Fandom wikis by up to 18%. This affects how readers, as well as future editors, find your wikis. Over these two years, changes to Google’s algorithms-meaning, the secret sauce Google uses to determine how pages show up and rank in their search results-have negatively affected Gamepedia’s search engine optimization (SEO). I know this is a big change, but that search result visibility makes it a necessary one. There are a number of reasons for this, but one of the primary ones is to ensure that Gamepedia wikis and the hard work editors put into them continue to rank well in search results. After nearly two years of working together to bring Fandom and Gamepedia wikis onto one platform, we will be starting to migrate all Gamepedia wikis to a domain in early 2021. Update (March 4th): Remaining Gamepedia wikis are beginning their migrations soon.
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