Comments on: Breaking down Google Sidewiki

By: Daniel

Daniel — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 12:31:46 +0000

Google SideWiki reminds me a bit of the StumbleUpon comments section:

- you have to have the plugin installed to view it
- you can say whatever you’d like

But if it’s something that takes off, brands should at least monitor what’s being said on the SW pages, even if just to listen.

By: Doug Haslam » Blog Archive » Google Sidewiki: Brandjacking? or the Future? (w/ Bonus Content)

Tue, 06 Oct 2009 21:02:32 +0000

[...] as Bryan Person acknowledges, this presents a conversation appearing alongside a brand’s own sites that they have no editorial [...]

By: Google Sidewicki: Brandjacking? or the Future?

Google Sidewicki: Brandjacking? or the Future? — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 15:12:50 +0000

[...] as Bryan Person acknowledges, this presents a conversation appearing alongside a brand’s own sites that they have no [...]

By: BryanPerson

BryanPerson — Sun, 04 Oct 2009 11:21:39 +0000

Ian: Thanks for the insight, and hadn’t come across this yet. But sure enough, no Sidewiki entries are allowed, for example, when I’m logged into my online banking account (a secure sight).

But I suspected that brands and companies would be shooting themselves in the foot by encrypting their public pages just to keep out Sidewiki comments.

For others reading this comment stream, here is the Sidewiki troubleshooting page – http://www.google.com/support/toolbar/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=157471

By: Ian Orekondy

Ian Orekondy — Sun, 04 Oct 2009 05:05:45 +0000

Bryan – there are actually some page types where Sidewiki comments are NOT available, at least currently. And while there are definitely a lot of bugs to be worked out with Sidwiki, the Troubleshooting page reveals some interesting insights into how brands, especially regulatory-sensitive brands in the pharma industry, may potentially be able to limit how Sidwiki integrates into their sites.

For example:

“The Sidewiki button will appear grayed-out when comments are unavailable for a specific page.”

One reason why Sidewiki comments are unavailable:

“The page you’re on is a secure or internal page
Sidewiki currently does not support comments over internal or SSL (https) encrypted pages.”

Obviously, SSL encrypted pages are not indexed by search engines, so if brands were to make more of their pages SSL encrypted in an effort to keep Sidewiki comments from their pages, they’d sacrfice their SEO rankings and lose a main source of low-cost site traffic.

Ian

By: Jay Ehret

Jay Ehret — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 13:26:38 +0000

So here is what Google is saying to you: “Your site is not your own.” You build a site and Google finds a way to profit from it, with or without your permission. If Seth Godin doesn’t want to allow comments on his blog, Google says “that’s too bad, because your getting them anyway. You want moderated comments and reviews on your site? Too bad, you don’t get them.”

Advertising will be the interesting thing to watch. When ads start appearing in sidewikis on brand home pages, you can expect the lawyers to get busy. Let’s say I’m Amazon and I just paid nearly a billion dollars for Zappos. Yet in all my Zappos product pages are Google ads for competitor’s shoes. I’m going to sit still and let that happen? Not likely.

By: Tamara Gruber

Tamara Gruber — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 20:44:02 +0000

Bryan,
Nice write up and saved me the trouble of digging into it more deeply myself. I have to say from what I have heard and read so far, I agree with your conclusions. As a user, it could add great value or be a junkyard. As a website owner, I’m troubled by the lack of automated monitoring and alerting when new Sidewiki comments are added.

I think another question is — if Sidewiki takes off and really impacts SEO, do we ditch blog comments and encourage Sidewiki commenting instead? I’ll be keeping a close eye on it as it develops.

By: BryanPerson

BryanPerson — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 19:24:12 +0000

Happy to help, Aaron. I wanted to share what I had learned!

By: Aaron Strout

Aaron Strout — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 15:48:59 +0000

Bryan – great write up. I’ve heard a lot about Google’s Sidewiki but didn’t really understand how it worked. You did a nice job of explaining it and then providing some of the pros and cons of its usage. Thanks for once again delivering the value.

Best,
Aaron