Getting to Knol You

It's no secret that Google loves Wikipedia. The benefits of having dubious freely editable information rank first in the most popular search engine has been evaluated for quite a while, but I have to wonder how long that tawdry affair is going to last with Google's Knol looming on the horizon.

At the moment the service is in closed beta, but the idea looks to be part Wikipedia, part Squidoo. One expert user creates a page (a "lens" to represent your view in Squidoo, a "knol" or unit of knowledge in Knol) on a specific topic that can be edited by others, but only with the expert user's permission. In theory this would allow moderators to have a narrower focus than Wiki admins, and would prevent unchecked nonsense from being added while maintaining a social atmosphere. I'm interested to see if Knol will be better received than Squidoo, which got a perhaps unfair label as a haven for spammers who create lenses as advertisements passed off as authoritative information.

The other thing we know is Google loves Google. In all those examples the Google service snags the #1 spot, along with the top ad spot (and in some cases securing multiple ad spots on the first page). So then what will happen once Knols start propagating through the system? Will a Google / Wiki 1-2 punch become the standard for the front page of every search result? Ultimately the quality of information on those Knols and Wikipedia pages will either create or prevent public backlash, but if websites with a singular focus can’t reach the top of their subject’s rankings because they aren’t “in” with Google, it might raise a few eyebrows.