Usage Of Keywords That Google Loves Options

[L. Mohan Arun]

If I host the same content on these two different DNS entries

wiki.domain.com
www.domain.com

Will the wiki-named site achieve higher rankings? I surmise that the word wiki causes Google to think it is more quality content.

[SERPico]

This would simply result in duplicate content on your domain. Using the word Wiki or any other word for that matter does not indicate to Google the content is of high quality.

Incoming links is a major factor that will tell Google how good your content is, Google can't tell in a automated fashion just by reading (crawling) if it's quality content.

[L. Mohan Arun]

Well actually I am not looking for duplicate content. I will be posting only one set of content, but want to see if posting it under wiki.domain.com would be better than www.domain.com.

Since you are saying Google cant differentiate quality content from junk content, I would say that I have noticed Wikipedia pages always get a higher ranking. So quality content is known to Google.

As for as the backlinks go I think anybody can buy as many links as they want so it should not be a factor for determining ranking, so I find Google's algorithm questionable if they rely on number of links.

[SERPico]

Well actually I am not looking for duplicate content. I will be posting only one set of content, but want to see if posting it under wiki.domain.com would be better than www.domain.com.

Okay, it doesn't matter either way. Both options will give you the same result.

Since you are saying Google cant differentiate quality content from junk content, I would say that I have noticed Wikipedia pages always get a higher ranking. So quality content is known to Google.

The reason you see WikiPedia ranking is because it's a high authority site. Not because it's a Wiki by nature or it uses the word Wiki.

As for as the backlinks go I think anybody can buy as many links as they want so it should not be a factor for determining ranking, so I find Google's algorithm questionable if they rely on number of links.

Well, that's a big factor for Google to rank site A higher then B, the amount and quality of incoming links is going to be playing a crucial role, that's why Google isn't happy about people buying links.

[phaithful]

I agree with SERPico. The term wiki doesn't alway signify quality content. Wikipedia has a strong community that monitors spam and malicious activity all the time.

On the basis of using terminology, I would speculate that wiki.domain.com would probably raise a few flags for Google and other engines because wiki type interfaces tend to be rampant with spam and abuse. Unless you're a trusted domain, I'd say that strategy might just backfire on you.

[Jill]

Absolutely, positively correct what the others have said here.

Wiki = nothing
Wikipedia = big time authoritative site with checks and balances in place

[Andy LoCascio]

I have been away from this board too long...

Google does not impart any particular advantage to the Wikipedia pages just because they are from Wikipedia. Their search algorithim simply favors them because they have plenty of inbound partner links, are not stuffed with keywords (or anyhting else that might cause a penalty), and have a respectible densities for particular search terms.

We often come across SEO jobs that require us to get ranked ahead of a wikipedia entry. There is no great trick to it, you simply need to have the right content and enough relevant high quality inbound links.

Wikipedia pages are treated just like all other pages. It is in Googles best interest to do so. If you have page that is more authoritative (based on content and inbound links) than the wiki page, then your page will rank better.