The Industry Standard - Google closes Knol by end of 2009? - Comments

Knol includes excellent

Murry Shohat — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 14:01:34 -0500

Knol includes excellent content, often on health and medicine, that hunts well in the top search engines. These Knols form a useful backbone of excellence and quality and have since Knol's launch. I am pleased to be part of a group that produces high quality Knols on healthcare and other topics.

However, Google's "wild west" policy of extreme content liberalism allows rampant gaming. For example, one of the commenters here has produced over 1,700 knols, nearly none of which have content any more valuable than an empty page. Others are doing the same. One lugnut is producing TwitterKnols. Why?

These people have discovered that Web noise (as opposed to search rank) will deliver some meager number of page views. The guy with 1700 essentially worthless Knols has achieved around 300 page views on average. Do the math: over one-half million total page views for his "library." What does this cut and paste expert do? He announces himself as Knol's top author. But Knol itself reserves that right and places it on the home page: http://knol.google.com/k/knol/system/knol/pages/SearchToolkit?show=off&l...

Get rid of this narcissitic crap and Knol stands a chance to survive. Embrace it and Knol will become a metaphor for Garbage Dump and should disappear. My bet: there is too much information to be mined by the social scientists, so Knol will survive into 2010 at least.

Now knol has around 250,000

Narayana Rao K V S S — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 12:45:37 -0400

Now knol has around 250,000 articles and it is racing toward one million. There are many persons who are happy with knol articles. The relevance and utility of knol is to be recognized.

I don't think Google will

Jay Granofsky — Sun, 26 Apr 2009 19:54:33 -0400

I don't think Google will axe this project because it gives them great exposure and also builds partnerships with some very influential authors.

I put my first Knol up in Aug/2008 http://knol.google.com/k/jay-granofsky/top-10-ten-seo-tips/3udnymr0y2e8g... and I would hate to see this project killed.

@Garrick, nice find on

David Kuan — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 15:24:31 -0500

@Garrick, nice find on mattcutts's blog. This definitely supports the survival of Knol for the time being (for how long? who knows!).

SAI piece titled "Why Has

Garrick Hileman932530 — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 12:34:32 -0500

SAI piece titled "Why Has Knol Survived Google's Orphan-Project Killing Spree?"

http://www.alleyinsider.com/2009/1/why-has-knol-survived-googles-orphan-...

And a Googler's response:

http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/google-knol/

Great intentions alone will

David Kuan — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 08:15:32 -0500

Great intentions alone will not sustain it in dire times where cost cutting and maximizing revenue in the business world is paramount.

I think everyone is missing

Peter Baskerville — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 07:52:16 -0500

I think everyone is missing a huge point with the Knol project. All other Google products we use, but with the Knol project we as individuals have been invited to participate ... even to partner. Who wouldn't want to partner with the biggest online player on the planet. I have been contributing to the Knol project since Aug 08 and now 80% of my 14 Knols are on Page 1 one of Google & Yahoo.

The big point everyone is missing is that when you post your content on Knol, Google then have a direct stake in it which protect my work from plagiarism. Every time a small window on my Knol tells that the contents has been copied on the net, I send a note to Google and they fix it because it is in their direct interest to do so. The plagiarised site soon becomes invisible ... cool hey!

Here is my Knol explaining the benefits of writing Knols and becoming Google's partner in content development.
http://knol.google.com/k/peter-baskerville/how-to-write-knols-that-rank-...

Knol seems much closer to

Garrick Hileman932530 — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 00:59:10 -0500

Knol seems much closer to Google's stated mission to organize the world's information, so this one may be kept on life support.

Google closes Knol by end of 2009?

Yi-Wyn Yen — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 15:10:42 -0500

Google is on a rampage to get rid of its low-hanging fruit as a way to cut costs. Recently, the big G decided to drop Google Print Ads along with a number of other products like Jaiku, its Twitter-like competitor, and video uploads to Google Video.

Google launched Knol, a Wikipedia competitor, in July 2008. Google boasts that Knol has published more than 100,000 articles. That's great, except some say that no one is reading Knol and the site's filled with low-quality content.

Google apparently has no problems getting rid of products that don't gain traction. It dropped Lively, an online virtual community, just six months after it launched.

Prediction: Google will announce by the end of this year that Knol will go bust.