Will you help spread the word about WikiTree?

Question

Hi WikiTreers,

I need your help making sure WikiTree remains effective "cousin bait."

This is one of the big reasons to use WikiTree. When our cousins are searching for their ancestors' names we want them to find our profiles. We want them to see the genealogy we have worked so hard on. They might even have information or heirlooms we don't have.

WikiTree has always been great cousin bait because our public profiles are on the open Internet and well-indexed by Google. Over a million people a month end up on our pages because of Google searches.

Every year, the number of visitors to our pages has grown as our tree has grown larger and stronger. This is as it should be.

But this year we hit a wall. Our Google traffic is down in 2019. Instead of the normal 10-20% growth in a year, we're getting 15% fewer visitors than in 2018.

There are a variety of reasons for this, some of which we're addressing in technical ways. But the biggest is that Google is no longer indexing all our profiles.

Simply put, Google doesn't "think" WikiTree should have 20 million pages indexed.

Google is devaluing our pages because people aren't talking about them enough. We're not mentioned enough on social media, blogs, and other websites. This is one of the main ways that Google values a site. The more that people talk about a website and link to it, the more its pages will appear in search results.

Will you help by spreading the word about WikiTree? Simply sharing a link to an ancestor profile with your friends and family on Facebook helps all WikiTree profiles in Google. It's a small thing, but it all adds up.

Some things that would be awesome:

• Are there Facebook groups, forums, or other websites for your particular genealogical interest? There are a lot of groups for local history, genealogy, surnames, etc. Ask the group leader if it would be appropriate for you to post about WikiTree, or if they could add a link. If you have created free-space pages or categories that fit that niche, other members would probably be interested to see them.
• Do you belong to a genealogical or historical society? If they have a website, ask if they would add a link. If they have a blog or newsletter maybe you could even write a short guest post about how you use WikiTree.
• If there is a local society or library where genealogists meet "IRL" maybe you could offer to give a little presentation or workshop on using WikiTree. A number of WikiTreers have done this so we could get you a PowerPoint presentation or outline to make it easy. In addition to the direct outreach, presentations like this are usually mentioned in newsletters or even local newspapers, so Google notices them.
• If you participate in almost any other community website besides WikiTree you may have the opportunity to write a bio about yourself. If you say that you're a WikiTree.com member in that bio, it helps us.
• If you use a website like Quora or Reddit and it's appropriate to link to WikiTree in an answer or post, those mentions are very valuable.
• If you are a Wikipedian, links from Wikipedia articles are some of the best. Google knows that links get removed from Wikipedia if they're not worthy.
• If you work on the profile of an historical or notable person, search for other web pages about the person and ask if they'll add a link.

What are your ideas? The possibilities are endless. Pretty much any chatter on the Internet about WikiTree is good. Scary as it may be, Google sees it all.

Thanks, WikiTreers!

Chris

Comments

Well, if others report a similar problem, at least you will know it's not just you! 

(I have no idea if there is something else on the site that would breach the Euro privacy stuff.  I can try asking a friend living in Amsterdam if she can see the page.)

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Jan .. my friend in Amsterdam confirms she cannot see that page .. not using the google generated link as posted by Chris, nor the direct link as given her by me.  Her first response was "there must be something there that is not compliant with GDPR" (I don't know what that would be), so I think that is our answer.  SOMETHING on that page triggers the GDPR privacy/whatever warning.

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I can't access from the UK either. I agree that its most probably GDPR related. Sites now have to give you the option of declining 'personalisation' advertising and data collection cookies. You can either accept all or decline the ones you don't want. Some sites simply allow you to opt out of all but 'functional' cookies .A few  make it very time consuming to decline sending you round in loops trying to assert your right. On one site I had to decline over 100 separate advertising cookies)

Some US sites are compliant, some force you to accept or say you can't view. One of the large newspapers allows you to decline only if you pay a dollar a month as a subscription.

Some small sites, including those of many regional newspapers in the US don't have the necessary software (probably don't want or need it for their market) but to avoid any potential legal hassle block acess to their site  from EU countries. It looks to me as if Examiner Enterprise is one of these.

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Well, I got into that site yesterday from Africa. Not in the EU, but very far from Bartlesville, Oklahoma. So I like the hypothesis that this is GDPR- related. The website may be excluding all EU users.

I could not consistently access WikiTree over the Internet connection I had, so I didn't succeed in posting here until today.

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Thank you for taking the time to get these reviews and share them. I hope that wikitree administrators will take the frustrations seriously and follow up with recommendations and implementation of solutions or at least follow up and do some good faith investigations and provide a careful and diplomatic public response to the people who have expressed dismay at finding their work devalued, particularly the one who was blocked and found hundreds of hours of devoted work being taken from his/her control.

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Hi Bonnie :)

I think maybe because my post was off topic in that it wasn't an actual idea about how to share WikiTree, it may have been seen as negative and so not appreciated as was intended - a clue as to why traffic may be dropping. No one wants to believe the likes of those reviews, I certainly found them uncomfortable reading, but burying ones head in the sand never changes the truth.

So yes, I hope too that those public concerns are taken onboard by management and members alike. WikiTree is such a cool concept and it saddens me that these concerns and frustrations exist. Spreading the word is all good, but WikiTree needs to make people want to stay, not run a mile. Wikitree's Honor Code is a great place to start :)

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thanks for suggesting those ideas.

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Hi Nicky, just because we haven't replied to your comment about the reviews, doesn't mean we aren't aware of them or take them into consideration. We don't bury our heads in the sand. :)  Thanks!

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Something to keep in mind regarding the reviews on GenSoft: They are monitored, and we can identify almost each and every person who has posted there as someone who had multiple problems here on WikiTree and was ultimately asked to leave.

Unfortunately, not everyone is able to grasp the concept of a collaborative environment and successfully work here.

It's also important to remember that you're getting one side of the story from any review that you read anywhere. :-)

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That's good Eowyn.Thanks for the reply. And to Julie too, cheers. 

While it's true that not everyone can grasp the concept, or be comfortable with the concept, of a collaborative tree, it would be really nice if less "one sides" felt all those ways. It made me really sad reading all that. And I hate to say it, but if I had come across those reviews before I came across WikiTree, one sides or not, they just may have put me off looking at WikiTree - which was my point. 

Personally I hope that WikiTree lasts as long as the internet - that it flourishes and grows and grows. But, if traffic is dropping it just may be that some of those "one sides" need to be considered valid concerns and addressed - even if some of them are from people with "multiple problems" who are no longer welcome here.

It would be impossible to keep everyone happy all of the time :) Doesn't mean we shouldn't keep trying to though.

 

Answer 1

If you would like to be more involved, we've just added a lot of teams to the Ambassadors project.  This includes things like helping with social media, presenting at your local groups, helping us develop multimedia tools, working on linkbuilding on Wikipedia or participating in other forums, blogging and much more!

Check it out - https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Project:Ambassadors

Even if you aren't one of those people who gets excited to talk in public or on social media there are still lots of ways behind the scenes to be involved!  

If you want to join you can do so here: https://www.wikitree.com/g2g/887359/would-part-helping-grow-wikitree-presence-become-ambassador

Thanks!

Answer 2

I've been gently encouraging some of my friends to join Wikitree, no luck so far but I'll get one of 'em someday.

I do encourage Wikitree leaders to reach out to pro genealogists, especially those from ethnic communities underserved by most genealogy sites. That would be a good way to make Wikitree attractive to people who may find other sites unwelcoming for their genealogy -- Africans, Indians, Chinese, etc.

Answer 3

I have most definitely tweeted out some notables' pages when they come up in convo on Twitter. (I follow a lot of various historians.)

Comments

Thank you, Dina! That's really great.

Answer 4

Chris, links to WikiTree profiles regularly feature in some of the New Zealand genealogy Facebook pages. I note that when people are looking for places to put a family tree, WikiTree is often mentioned, especially by members. However, there can be negative comments, especially about accuracy. Too many unsourced profiles are getting onto the system and devalue what committed members are producing. While numbers of profiles are important, quality is paramount. I’d like us to consider ways to improve quality rather than just increase profile numbers.

Comments

I managed - that sounds contrived, but it isnt - to mention WikiTree on RootsChat today with reference to accuracy - 

I was asking for help with a particular family.

Here is the extract: As part of an upskilling exercise on WikiTree a mentor will check that I have researched and written a well-sourced biography for Elizabeth. 

Jean 

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Well done, Jean. I slip things in when I can too by posting links to good profiles. Even today, I was able to share a bit of research and a profile to Facebook. It was something I just happened to find accidentally on Paperspast; it solved a family mystery.

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Thanks, Fiona!

You're exactly right about the importance of improving the quality of profiles, especially the ones that are likely to get a lot of traffic, e.g. the notables, historical figures, and key ancestors.

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Chris, your comment about notables is interesting. While often the quality of the notable’s profile is good, are the links to and profiles of descendants of a similar quality? My observation is that people are so keen on proving their connections, that the research on the intervening generations is not nearly so thorough. This is why we need to continue to insist upon and find ways to recognise those who show their thorough research.

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And I just posted another link on Facebook of a profile I created and worked on a couple of weeks ago after the Connect-a-thon.

Answer 5

Chris, I've mentioned it in FB groups and at genealogy meetings and conferences and the two main responses are:

(1) It's too difficult to use, too technical, can't find anything there ...

(2) "I don't want other people changing my tree". Sometimes this response was caused by a bad experience on FamilySearch Family Tree, sometimes a bad experience on Ancestry. These people are not interested in having any part of their tree open.

Comments

No matter what Wikitree does, there will always be people who are not particularly computer-savvy, and who just want a place to dump "their tree" and forget about it. It's rarer nowadays but there are still occasionally outraged posts in G2G by people who never read the Honor Code, just clicked whatever they had to click to join, and have just found out that people will edit their family members.

Answer 6

I am a librarian at our local little library, which functions as a bit of a historical society, as well. We've started using WikiTree as our primary place to put all the scans of archival information and the research associated with it. Being free, it's perfect for small organizations with low (or no) budget and leaves the door easily open for members of those groups to participate in contributing information or easily help upload information and images. It would be great to see more groups use WikiTree this way! This is our history page which features WikiTree in several ways, if your group needs ideas. It's still all about the town history but makes use of the feature rich tools WikiTree offers for history. We post various photos on our library Facebook page from time to time, and if someone asks about a person featured and we have them on WikiTree, it's really handy to just link to their WT profile. 

Comments

Gosh, there are some lovely photos there! I especially love the one of loads of people against a building (Marion County Faces and Places) and my favourite has to be the three ladies.

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Definitely got some great photos and I saw wikitree right on main page!

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My library is just starting a digital history project, so I shared your post and link to your library with my library director.

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Being free, it's perfect for small organizations with low (or no) budget and leaves the door easily open for members of those groups to participate in contributing information or easily help upload information and images.

It's good, but it's not great. WikiTree needs to include image license metadata with the image, automatically, as part of the upload process. It's been integrated with numerous other photosharing websites and it isn't difficult. 

It's explained in detail on G2G, should you care to learn more about the relevance of this issue and why hosting image content here may, in some instances, be as good as burying it in your backyard. 

Answer 7

Hey, bossman.

I've been doing my part by linking WikiTree in my blog for #52Ancestors and talking about it in the various Facebook groups I've been a part of.

A good idea would be to have more of a social media presence. We're on Twitter and Facebook. But, you could tweet more stuff and spotlight some profiles on a theme. Like, I just made a page for Raphael (not the turtle.) and you could use it and other pages for a Renaissance theme.

Just an idea. Oh and you could think up some vids for YouTube, I am sure. That could help.

Just tossing ideas out there. If I have more, I'll let you know. Can't think of anything else right now. But, I will keep mentioning WikiTree and doing what I can on Twitter, Facebook and my blogs. Perhaps others could join in? *shrug*

I'm part of Blaine's Genealogy Squad group, From Paper to People, Generations Cafe and a few others.

Comments

Raphael: https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Sanzio-2

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I knew I forgot something. Thanks, Peter!

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I just resurrected my blog especially so that I could put my contributions widget on it.  And I mentioned that WikiTree saved me from falling into a Post-Retirement Vegetative State...

https://genwestuk.blogspot.com/2019/08/so-hows-that-working-for-you.html

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Haha. Nice. =) Raph's bio is ready, btw.

"Master of ineffective weapons".

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Thank you, Chris and Ros!

Eowyn and Sarah are leading are social networking efforts these days. I want to make sure you and Sarah connect on the Twitter stuff, especially.

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Hey Chris F!  :)

I have been doing a lot with Twitter these days and we appreciate all the mentions you put on WikiTree. I'd love to bounce ideas off you for Twitter, and other social media as I've been trying different methods to see what works.

I think doing a Renaissance theme would be pretty cool! I love Raphael :)

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Turtle or painter? Choose wisely!

Feel free to drop me a line, Sarah. I know you and Eowyn are fairly active on the Twitters. I have a few ideas. Maybe sprucing up the YouTube channel might work. Like a genealogy show or Interviews like what NextGenLive does.

I got few of 'em. Send me a PM any time! And thanks for the compliments!

And no problem, Bossman. *salute*

Answer 8

Have we thought about advertising? I have no idea what it costs to put those lovely spam banner ads up or even where they go up, but it seems that they appear all over and they always seem to know my internet history - somehow. It's like they're reading my mind... scary. I understand there's some costs associated with that, but you said all ideas...

The other thought is that Google does accept brib... I mean cash encouragement in the form of payments to *ahem* prioritize your site higher on the search food chain.

And at one time, in looking into such things, I believe that an increase in searches on Google also causes their searches to go higher on the list, so perhaps everyone could go out and search 5x a day on a WikiTree profile, find the link, click on it, and it creates a +1 on their magic invisible counter that has the potential to push us another notch higher on the list.

Comments

If anyone decides to do that, don't immediately return to google and click or search for something else. It tells google that you didn't find what you were looking for and reduces the page ranking.

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Good point, Ales.

You're right that we don't do advertising, Scott, and it would help. But, of course, we need to keep all our costs ultra-low. Those ads are more expensive than you might think. Sites like Ancestry pay something in the range of 50 cents to a dollar per click for them. So, WikiTree has to depend on its members for word-of-mouth promotion.

Answer 9

In preparation for a 200 year reunion, I assisted a church determine which families had been members for five generations, based on their church cemetery and encouraged anyone interested to check their genealogy on WikiTree. I have also helped the Spartanburg County Sons of Confederate Veterans track all soldiers recorded to make sure their graves were marked, especially ones buried outside of the county. Since I had been working the genealogy of that area, they contacted me in connected with WikiTree Civil War Project profiles.

Answer 10

Hey Chris, 

 Jus' sayin'...one of the first rules of trouble shooting...what were some of the last things changed......

"Hi Michael,

We closely examined the two options: either 1.) keeping categories in their old location and having a toggle button to display them, as you suggested, or 2.) moving them as we did.

What pushed us over the edge to #2 is the potential SEO benefits. Categories are important for search engine optimization. They help Google semantically understand a page, and thereby help our profiles rank more highly in search results. Keeping categories in a logical place for navigation -- and exactly paralleling Wikipedia -- helps ensure that the categories are properly interpreted by Google."

https://www.wikitree.com/g2g/806792/did-you-see-that-categories-now-appear-at-the-bottom-profiles

Comments

This is not only about WHERE the categories are located but about the usage of categories, the category police and the general direction of wikitree itself.

See N Blaylock's comment with the link to reviews (Thank You! for that BTW). Take note of some of the running themes about cliquishness and and the cult-like behavior, the 'my way or the highway' attitude....harken back to the 'now' A. T.'s  controversial question "Will too much orderliness drive WikiTreers mad?" https://www.wikitree.com/g2g/834943/will-too-much-orderliness-drive-wikitreers-mad

I have an older cousin who quit shortly after joining wikitree. One of the reasons she told me was that she was afraid of posting anything on G2G "Lest the flock of self-congratulatory harpies descend on her and peck her eyeballs out".  My general observation is that it is becoming so specialized/complicated and the tone so harsh and critical that the difficulty in getting any cousins to join and to stay has only increased in the time I've been here.

I have some psuedo-blogs on other genealogy websites that I USED to have continuing link-backs to wikitree.com and to specific profiles under discussion. The changes made and the rigidity of what is allowed in categories has eliminated the purpose for which I used them--which was a one-stop data resource center for that location ; designed, set up and laid out for 'cousin-bait' for NON WIKITREE USERs to peruse (and hopefully be intrigued enough to join in the fun).  My expectations that these NON WIKITREE USERs are going to travel through to Free Space Pages, OPSs , ONSs yada yada yada is zero.

Part of that data on the category page were links to those psuedo-blogs on those other websites. Since they're no longer part of the 'correct' data to have on a category and have been removed, I thought it was only fair that I no longer link to wikitree from those other websites and have no done so in a while. I am under no delusions of grandeur or on no ego trip that the small # of views of those psuedo-blogs now no longer linking back here have ANY impact on the topic of the original post. However, I merely point out my experiences and wonder if others have had similar ones and if the combined reduction has any contribution to the reduction Chris notes.

Answer 11

Here goes the viewpoint from over the ocean in France, where genealogy has been around for about ten centuries.

I've joined Wikitree only 4 months ago, and had since a few exchanges about it with a few "old" French genealogists, managing large online trees with thousands of profiles on Geneanet. They just did not know anything about Wikitree, not even the name. Those people of course have been searching genealogical information on the Web for years. How come they never ever stumbled on a Wikitree profile? Just a browser/search engine (read : Google) default language settings issue. If your system has French as preferred language, Google will never ever retrieve Wikitree pages in a search result, because Wikitree pages are in English. I suppose it's the same for Italian, Spanish, Russian ...

And when I point to Wikitree to those serious, respectable French genealogists, they say : hum, c'est très anglo-saxon, a polite way to say "interesting, but not invented here".

Other sign. I've been monitoring on a daily basis the list of new Wikitreers at https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Special:Honor_Code, about 50 new every day, hoping to find a lot of non-American people. They are very very very few. 

So, if I had a single advice, it would be : internationalization of interfaces. 

Comments

I already said it in my Meet our Members-interview that I would love to have the interface multilingual. I am no SEO-expert, but I think it should help get Wikitree more known in the non-native-English world. I have no language preference in my google searches, plus google knows in the meanwhile I am interested in genealogy, so I see some pages others might not see. 

I also see that there are hardly questions in G2G that are not asked in English. I believe many people who are not that fluent in English are actually intimidated to ask in their mother tongue and, additionally often don't really expect to get an answer because they don't think someone understands their question. When they get a human answer in their mother tongue (read: no google translate created answer), they are really thankful for that. 

I agree with Bernard, to let Wikitree grow not only profile-wise but also members-wise Wikitree definitely has to become less English-centered. 

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Do you think it would it help to have g2g  "categories" (Like "The Tree House" and "WikiTree Help" - I think of them as boards) that are specific to a language besides English?

For example, if there was a French board, would more French language questions be posted?

Just brainstorming here.

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The internationalization of interfaces and the "international boards" are two different things actually. I am wondering about the methods as well, because I was member in another forum where such international boards were existing, but actually not very active.

Maybe it would be a very first step to make the group of polyglott users/language helpers more known to and within the community.

(Brainstorming too, remembering my holiday in Finland, decades ago)

When I was there in a shop, the shop assistants had their names on the uniform, together with flags of the languages they speak (made up example: Marja Nieminen, [finnish/swedish/english]) so you could see at a glance in which language you can approach the assistant.

If it is technically possible, the group of language helpers could maybe get their language flags somehow prominent on their profiles (or even profile previews), so that someone who hovers over a name sees: "Ok, he speaks French, je peux demander qc en Français." I know there are the tables on the profile showing the level of proficiency in foreign languages, but to get to those you really have to visit the profile.

I still don't have the big answer for that question, but if the language group would be more known and more visible that could be a help too, I think.

This is it for now.

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Yeah, it would definitely be just a very first step.

There would have to be people dedicated to regularly posting there too. Asking the question of the week, perhaps posts of a "French (or whatever language) Profile of the Week" for profiles with good biographies written in that language, things like that. Basically, just making an effort to make the board seem active.

Answer 12

I just saw the other day, on a Facebook genealogy group, someone saying in connection to collaborative genealogy Web sites, that "Even on WikiTree there are errors". That's really a huge compliment. Some people actually expect WikiTree to stand out with respect to reliability.

Comments

Love it. Thanks, Leif!

Answer 13

Due to the lack of birth certificates in the early period for the South African records we make use of baptismal records. We also have a huge amount of Death Notice added to profiles

It is surprising to see how many Facebook users do not know how to navigate Family Search to find the information. The page for the Genealogical Society of South Africa is constantly inundated with request to help find records.

Will it help/ will it be ok, if we add all the baptismal records we used on South African profiles to a free space page and then post on Facebook the link to that page so the members of the Genealogical Society of South Africa on Facebook can use that information? How visible is a free space page to visitors? Will duplication be a problem?  

or: Will a simple link to profiles on Wikitree be a better option?   

Just pondering this idea and input will be appreciated

Comments

Thanks, Ronel.

Regarding the visibility of free-space profiles: definitely, if you link to them and the privacy level is Public or Open they will be indexed by Google. These pages can be better destinations than person profiles if someone is searching for "South African birth records" or whatever, and it closely matches the title and content of the page.

That reminds me, G2G questions work really well for this too. If you were to ask and answer a question like "How do you find South African birth records?" here that would be perfect for people who are asking Google that question.

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Thank you Chris

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And if the best answer is selected, that is even better.

Answer 14

I have a large tree on Ancestry that I use for research but have since created the same tree on WikiTree.  Does it help to add individual profile links from WikiTree to the corresponding profile in Ancestry?  So, there's a push from Ancestry to WikiTree when others view the Ancestry profile?

Answer 15

I have just added a WikiTree link to 494 pages on my  family tree website. I hope that helps.
Simon

Answer 16

I share WikiTree familial profile information and links on a nearly daily basis on a targeted genealogical Face-Book page...

Answer 17

I have just done what I should have done some time back. I run a family history site, https://cayleyfamilyhistory.wordpress.com/, and on the home page I have now added a paragraph about WikiTree. I plan to look at some Wikipedia entries to which I have contributed with a view to seeing where I can sensibly add WikiTree links.

Answer 18

Yes I am trying to tell all my family and friends about the wikitree project.

Answer 19

Just posted to Facebook, inviting my friends and family to Wikitree

Answer 20

I was just wondering if we have an update on the Google visit statistics since 2019.  Have they improved?  I would think the WikiTree Challenges should be helping!