In a recent report conducted by SimilarWeb, results have proven that Wikipedia is showing both sudden and massive drops in traffic from Google’s organic search results. Co-founder of Wikipedia, Jimmy Wales, argues that there is no sudden decrease in traffic but this has actually been a slow, long-term problem.
While Wikipedia used to dominate the search results, it is currently showing a steadier decline. There is no exact indicator as to why Wikipedia is seeing a noticeable difference, but some theories have begun to circulate. Some webmasters believe that this decrease is due to the Google Answerbox and others believe that the algorithm has changed. The Panda update could have very well been the reason for Wikipedia’s drop but there are other factors to take into account. Google is always on the hunt to find the best answers for users as quickly as possible. Lastly, Google is beginning to favor brands over Wikipedia which could very well be hurting their traffic.
Whatever the case may be, Wikipedia has lost more than 550 million desktop organic visits in a 5 month period. From February 2015- July 2015, Wikipedia has also lost 500 million organic visits from a mobile device.