Hitwise has released a report according to which out of total traffic coming to Wikipedia, approx 10% goes back to Google and over 3% go to MySpace.  It is well understood that people searching for reference articles and information come to Wikipedia from Google (Google contributes to 51% of Wikipedia traffic) and other search engines.  In quest of more information they go back to search engines, mainly Google.  Here is the chart showing the exit destinations for Wikipedia visitors.

This data, however, got me thinking about three aspects related to Wikipedia and Internet search:

One, is the quality of Wikipedia articles not good enough because of which 10% of the traffic goes back to Google for further search?  OK, I take the point that people are always on the lookout for more information and thus move to search engines but still it is questionable.

The second big question is why the heck so many people  are going to MySpace after searching Wikipedia.  According to ComScore, Wikipedia had 55 Million unique visitors in February which means Wikipedia sent over 1.5 Million visitors to MySpace in February alone.  Is it happening because of the spam links on Wikipedia about MySpace or is there any other reason?

The third aspect is the popularity of movies and videos on the Internet.  People seem to be searching alot about movies and videos and that is why almost 5% of the people head on to IMDB and YouTube from Wikipedia.

What are your thoughts on this, especially Wikipedia’s traffic moving to MySpace?

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