<p>Nielsen Online has released data showing that Wikipedia's 8,000% growth in the past 5 years is attributed to search. Really? Is that what happens when Google ranks all of your pages as #1? I had no idea.</p>

<p>Breaking down the not-at-all suprising data:</p>

<p>Google sent the most search traffic to en.wikipedia.org with 61% of searches on home computers and 66% of work computers. Yahoo came in second at 19% home, 16% work. The main www.Wikipedia.org came in third, beating out MSN and AOL at home and search.MSN.com and search.Live.com at work.</p>

<p>Wikipedia's growth is slowing, however. Here's data for unique visitors in the month of April for the past six years with the year-over-year growth percentages:</p>

<p><strong>2003</strong> 700,000, n/a<br />
<strong>2004</strong> 2,082,000, 197%<br />
<strong>2005</strong> 6,753,000, 224%<br />
<strong>2006</strong> 25,970,000, 285%<br />
<strong>2007</strong> 45,934,000 77%<br />
<strong>2008</strong> 55,820,000 17%</p>

<p>Related Reading:<br />
<a href="http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/blog/080512-104232">Powerset Launches Piggybackipedia: Wikipedia Search Engine</a><br />
<a href="http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/blog/070122-123055">Wikipedia External Links Now "Nofollow"</a><br />
<a href="http://www.clickz.com/showPage.html?page=3628772">Ten Reasons Marketers Should Pay Attention to Wikipedia</a></p><div class="feedflare">
<a href="http://feeds.searchenginewatch.com/~f/sewblog?a=kcLPmH"><img src="http://feeds.searchenginewatch.com/~f/sewblog?i=kcLPmH" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.searchenginewatch.com/~f/sewblog?a=0vOP8H"><img src="http://feeds.searchenginewatch.com/~f/sewblog?i=0vOP8H" border="0"></img></a>
</div><img src="http://feeds.searchenginewatch.com/~r/sewblog/~4/290946816" height="1" width="1"/>

Read entire article: Wikipedia Traffic Grows 8,000% in 5 Years Due to Search Referrals