Google or Wikipedia - Which is Your First Stop?

dwarfking asks: "Over the last several months I have noticed that more and more often, when I am searching for information on the web, I find myself starting at Wikipedia instead of Google. It used to be that the first hit on many of my Google searches linked to Wikipedia articles, so I started going there first. I've found that except for searching for current events, by starting with Wikipedia I get a good explanation of the topic of interest and the pages generally have links to other good resources that are right on topic (without the need to scroll through dozens of hits). Are others of you seeing similar shifts in your search usage and if so, do any of you think this could become a trend for the larger community? If so, then what could that potentially mean for Google?"

Google

[bconway]

If the Wikipedia entry is worthwhile (believe it or not, sometimes it isn't), it'll be listed first in your search. Best of both worlds.

It depends..

[Alicat1194]

If I'm looking for information on a given concept or word, I go straight to Wikipedia. If I'm looking for more general or technical information on a subject, I go to Google.

To me it's not really an either/or situation, plus Wikipedia can be very lacking in some areas, especially current events or information about more specialised fields.

I'd say Wikipedia and Google are safe from each other (though leaning more towards Wikipedia, since Google often sends you there anyway).

I would say

[DarthChris]

This is a moot point.

I'm being serious. Google is supposed to tell you where to find what you're looking for, like the catalog computer in a library that tells you exactly which shelf to go to, whereas Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, an indiviual book in the library. Comparing the two is IMHO completely pointless.

Google..

[PyrotekNX]

I still use Google for my initial searches. I have been noticing that the hits I get are becoming less relavant as time goes on. This is obviously because sponsored links are constantly bringing up irrelavant hits. I don't consider Wikipedia as a traditional search engine so its not going to be able to replace Google. Both still have their usefulness in different ways. Until I get fed up woth my current searching strategy, Google will be my first choice.

Re:It depends..

[daranz]

I'd tend to agree. Wikipedia is great if you want basic information on a particular subject, and you know that google results are likely to contain a lot of noise (such as when searching for a name of a product, or a company).

On the other hand, Google is better for less precise search terms, such when you can't remember the origin of a movie quote, or some other reference, or when you're looking for something that can't fit under one title on wikipedia.

Google, because wikipedia editors have god complex

[Anonymous Coward]

I prefer to use google to look, and wikipedia as a minor reference. The reason is that wikipedia authors have this habit of deleting useful content in the name of "unencyclopedic", and "not notable" using alexa.

If it's not in wikipedia, then I assume that it was deleted for stupid reasons, and thus why I use google first.

When possible, I go straight to the source though.

I use the right one for my search

[objekt]

If I want to know the cast of a movie, I use IMDB.
If I want to see older versions of a web page, I use the wayback machine at archive.org
If I want a quick summary of a single subject, I use wikipedia
If I need to know the name of a song from a few lyrical fragments, I use google.

Google is a search engine for most of the web so if I HAD to limit myself to one starting place, it would be google. Or dogpile :D

Re:Google wins

[Mitaphane]

You're right. A lot people mistakenly think that the Wikipedia is a huge ball that encompasses every piece of human knowledge, it's not [wikipedia.org]. It's an encyclopedia, albeit one that can covers topics traditionally considered too trivial for print standards. I made that mistake before I got big into editing for the Wikipedia. The Wikipedia covers a lot of information but there is some information that it isn't made for. Want to know where 123 Fake St. is at in your home town? Wikipedia won't help you. Want to know what movies are playing tonight? Wikipedia won't help you. Want to know, in detail, about the life of the president [wikipedia.org] of an obscure African country? Wikipedia will help you, but not as much as it will help you know about every single, obscure, trivial detail of a fictional character's [wikipedia.org] life.

Neither?

[AlXtreme]

I've been using Clusty [clusty.com] for the last 18 months. A meta-searchengine combined with a Wikipedia-search, the best of both worlds!

Re:Google still wins

[hotdiggitydawg]

That won't get you all the hotels though - what about the Paris Hilton?

Re:They both suck, but

[WilliamSChips]

The current worthlessness of Google is shown by the frequency of Wikipedia in its first page of results.

You sound like David Brandt, famous Google-hater who hates Google because his crappy database site never got any pagerank. Due to his lack of success in anything but whining, he whines more about things like Google and Wikipedia that do things better than he does.

Wikipedia is key competitor to Google

[solferino]

I think this is a very interesting topic and one that I have been thinking about over the last few months. I suspect that Google has identified Wikipedia as a key competitor for the following reason. Wikipedia has the advantage over Google in terms of convenience. When most people want to know about something they usually just want a basic collection of descriptive facts so they can form a general impression. Wikipedia is very good for this. With Google however they have to sort through a collection of search results and perhaps visit two or more sites before they get an answer. This lowers the convenience level several steps. Convenience is very often most important to the typical user.

I'm sure that Google would be monitoring the click-through rate to Wikipedia. For more data they might also be measuring the increase in people typing a search query and then adding the word 'wikipedia' after it to make sure that they get the wikipedia page coming up first in the results list. If the users are clued-up they can just submit the request by hitting 'I feel lucky' and go straight there.

More interestingly, when using Firefox users can have the search box set to wikipedia and can then very conveniently type the name of a person or country or a general concept into this box and go directly to the wikipedia page. Using this method no search site is used at all.

Google is still very useful when one knows how to search for things using particular strings of words or combinations of search terms but this is not something that most people are very proficient at. Wikipedia is a better lowest common denominator and I mean this not as an insult but rather as a compliment.