Knol is fairly under-subscribed in terms of the number of users aware of it’s existence. Knol (short for knowledge? not according to Google) is a Wikipedia-like online encyclopedia.
So what’s the difference? The biggest thing for me is the lack of anonymity. In Wikipedia you can edit an article and short of your IP address, there is no way of knowing who you are. Not in Knol you old pirate! Knol requires a valid login. You can also only edit your own articles (I’m not too sure what this means for Duplication).
It all starts getting a little messy now in SEO terms. Firstly, revenue is involved as ad’s can be displayed and the author will take a percentage of the generated revenue - surely this is a conflict of interest as Google can decide to place Knol articles over others and thereby increase it’s revenue?! Equally, Google trusts Knol content more than content which is already listed and ranked. This is very dangerous for genuine original content writers as emulated (stolen) content in Knol could be ranked higher than the original.
I am currently going through the process of entering some of my content into Knol, I don’t mind if it ranks higher as I’m more interested in being able to share my experiences, copyright owners are already starting to worry significantly about Knol, luckily - I’m not.
