The Google Knol Pluses And Minuses

Writing by Nick Stamoulis Tweet

Does Google favor Knol pages over all other content? Matt Cutts says “No”.

There is a common conception that any time Google rolls out a new product that it will favor its own product at the expense of all competition within its search engine rankings. That’s understandable but it isn’t always true. I think it is true of products like YouTube and Blogspot. I say Blogspot because it’s such a high-spam neighborhood that any other neighborhood with the same level of spam would likely get banned from Google. Nevertheless, how many Blogspot blogs rank in Google’s SERPs every day? Case closed.

YouTube is a little bit trickier because it is actually a very valuable and highly trafficked website. And it has so little competition chasing its tail. Nevertheless, it dominates searches for video on Google despite other viable options like Yahoo! Video, Metacafe, and others.

But what about Google Knol? Here’s what Matt Cutts says:

Google Knol does not receive any sort of boost or advantage in Google’s rankings. When Knol launched, some people asked questions about this. I dutifully trundled around the web and said that Knol would not receive any special benefits in our scoring/ranking for search. With the benefit of six months’ worth of hindsight, I hope everyone can agree that Knol doesn’t get some special boost or advantage in Google’s rankings.

OK. I concede. Google Knol gets no special favors. But that’s not to say there are no search engine optimization benefits. What this means is the optimization benefits are the same as they would be for any other site on the Web. Therefore, it should be a good link building tool. Create a Google Knol and link back to your website and you should get a highly valued, relevant inbound link. Do it multiple times and you should get a several inbound links. You think?

Another thing about Google Knols, Matt Cutts suggests using them if you don’t have a blog. I agree. If you have a blog then you should use your blog for what you would otherwise use a Google Knol for, but if you don’t have a blog then by all means start building Google Knol pages. Just don’t expect them to receive any special favors.