Frequently Asked Questions

Q: What is the cost of your Wikipedia visibility services?

A: Navigating the notoriously complex rules of Wikipedia requires extensive expertise. We only accept assignments which meet Wikipedia Notability criteria and our billing rates range from $95/h to $175/h, depending on complexity of the task. Whereas a few hours of work suffice for creating a short profile based on a few sources, larger assignments involve multiple profiles in multiple languages, based on numerous sources and may add up to hundreds of hours of work.

Q: Do I have full control over the content of the initially submitted article?

A: Yes, so long as the article is written in compliance with Wikipedia rules. We will not post an article without your approval, and you can later make modifications to the article on your own. However, under Wikipedia rules, we are required to do our own research and submit a balanced article based on multiple sources. Wikipedia articles are NOT press releases or advertisements written by the company or its ad agency. As specified in Wikipedia Pillars: “Wikipedia has a neutral point of view. We strive for articles that advocate no single point of view. Sometimes this requires representing multiple points of view, presenting each point of view accurately and in context, and not presenting any point of view as "the truth" or "the best view." All articles must strive for verifiable accuracy: unreferenced material may be removed, so please provide references. Editors' personal experiences, interpretations, or opinions do not belong here. That means citing verifiable, authoritative sources, especially on controversial topics and when the subject is a living person. When conflict arises over neutrality, discuss details on the talk page, and follow dispute resolution.”

Q: Are there subjects not admissible to Wikipedia?

A: Yes, and they are best summed up in another of the five Wikipedia Pillars: "Wikipedia is an online encyclopedia. It incorporates elements of general and specialized encyclopedias, almanacs, and gazetteers. Wikipedia is not a soapbox, an advertising platform, a vanity press, an experiment in anarchy or democracy, an indiscriminate collection of information, or a web directory. It is not a dictionary, newspaper, or a collection of source documents."

Q: Do you guarantee the articles you write will be accepted by Wikipedia?

A: We guarantee that we will submit professional content, consistent with Wikipedia rules and standards; however, Wikipedia does not have a central acceptance authority that makes a final conclusion about the admissibility of articles. An article may be flagged, edited and removed at any time by any user or administrator. In such cases, we will make the necessary changes and resubmit it until it is accepted. However, if the article is deleted, you will receive a full refund on all of your fees.

Q: How long does it take you to learn that someone's modified an article?

A: We receive alerts instantaneously.

Q: Do you offer money-back guarantee?

A: Yes. All fees paid by the client will be reimbursed if the Wikipedia page posted or edited by WikiExperts is deleted within 30 days after completion of work. This guarantee doesn't cover alterations which do not affect majority of the page, deletion debates or tags that do not result in deletion, or erroneous deletions subsequently reversed.

Q: How is WikiExperts affected by Wikipedia’s stance against paid editing and related bans?

A: It does not impede us from providing quality services to our clients. Here are some related observations:

• Wikipedia banned all companies and individuals from editing their own profiles, even if the profile is inaccurate, outdated or defamatory.
• In other words, your competitors, disgruntled ex-employees and other biased parties are allowed to edit your profile, but you are not permitted to do so.
• Wikipedia bans people and organizations for merely criticizing this policy.
• WikiExperts was banned from editing English Wikipedia for such criticism.
• The ban was NOT related to any violation of any Wikipedia rule; no such violation was even alleged in the motion for banning; the measure was explicitly worded as a retaliation for expressing a critical opinion about Wikipedia’s anti-commerce policies.
• We believe that such suppression of speech is a shameful low point in the history of Wikipedia and, likely, unlawful.
• Ironically, the ban is purely declarative: WikiExperts employees do not directly edit Wikipedia. Instead, we act as a consulting company which outsources such editing to most suitable affiliated experts.
• Wikipedia’s de-facto ban on paid editing is universally ignored. In a recent study conducted by the Public Relations Society of America, 40% of PR professionals admitted to having edited Wikipedia. It amounts to over a quarter of million of PR pros who take refuge in the Wikipedia’s "Ignore All Rules" policy which says: "If a rule prevents you from improving or maintaining Wikipedia, ignore it.”
• Businesses similarly ignore the ban. The same study showed that "24% of company pages were created by a PR team.”
• Even Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales, famously whitewashed his own profile in violation of the ban of Conflict of Interest editing.
• Wikipedia traffic is commerce-dominated. 21 out of 25 highest-traffic articles on Wikipedia are related to commercial subjects: corporations, movies, books, TV series, etc.
• As Wikipedia accounts are anonymous, the anti-commerce restrictions are unenforceable and create a culture of hypocrisy.
• We believe that the true reason for anti-commerce actions of Wikipedia is the attempt to slow down the rapid decrease in the number of unpaid volunteers, who do all writing and editing work on Wikipedia.
• We further believe that the unpaid-labor-only/no-commerce approach of Wikipedia is slowing down its development and impeding Wikipedia from effectively achieving its declared objective of bringing extensive encyclopedic information to humanity.
• While critical of the policies which we deem damaging to Wikipedia, we deeply respect the remarkable work done by tens of thousands Wikipedians and are proud of our contribution to the project.