Wikibombing refers to the unwelcome practice of using article creation and/or various search engine optimization (SEO) techniques for the purpose of maximizing the search engine results ranking of topics covered in Wikipedia, thereby elevating their prominence in the service of commercial interests or political or social advocacy.

The term came to public attention in June 2011 via a critical story published by The Register on the Wikipedia article campaign for "santorum" neologism.^[1] The Wikipedia article describes a Google bomb campaign by U.S. columnist Dan Savage directed against the Republican politician Rick Santorum. By late April and early May 2011 the press reported that Santorum might run for president of the United States,

In May 2011 the article on Dan Savage's campaign, then titled "santorum (neologism)", was expanded more than three-fold to over 5,000 words and added to several navigation templates, most of them newly created. These templates were then added to hundreds of articles, creating several hundred in-bound links. In addition, seven articles related to Dan Savage, whose biography contains a section on the controversy and a link to the article, were nominated for (DYK) appearances on the main page within the space of about a week.

As the article about the neologism campaign was one of the top results in Google searches for Santorum's name,^[1] some editors, including Jimbo Wales, expressed concern that the article had become part of the Google bomb attack, rather than simply reporting it. They argued that this compromised the project's political neutrality and raised concerns related to Wikipedia's policy on biographies of living persons. The result was widespread controversy on Wikipedia, a discussion on the wikien-l mailing list, an RfC on renaming or merging the article, a failed request for arbitration, and the story in The Register on the "wikibombing".^[1]

Creating or expanding articles, linking them with templates, and nominating them for DYK are standard Wikipedia practices. In the case of noted SEO attempts, Google Bombs, or other political controversies—in which coverage of the SEO attempt can be confused with its perpetuation— these practices require caution to avoid the appearance of promotion.

The following actions may create the appearance of promotion, both within the community and elsewhere:

• Creating excessively detailed coverage of commercial products or controversial topics (such as citing and linking dozens of trivial references, rather than a representative sample of major coverage)
• Creating multiple navigation templates containing the article, and adding these to multiple unrelated articles (this may raise SEO concerns)
• Submitting multiple related articles for main page appearances (e.g. in the "Did you know ..." or "Today's featured article" areas)

Such actions, undertaken unilaterally, may leave the community unsure of your motivations. Before pursuing the above, editors are encouraged to seek broad input from talk pages, noticeboards, relevant WikiProjects, or (in the case of DYK nominations) the DYK talk page, to determine the boundary between legitimate coverage and promotion.

When encountering the apparent promotion of a topic by another editor or editors, it is important to assume good faith. It's natural to want to link to articles that you've been working hard on, and editors may fall into the trap of promotion without realizing it. When dealing with a political controversy or suspected SEO attempt, discuss the apparent promotion with the involved editors and, if necessary, seek broad input on talk pages, noticeboards and WikiProjects.

• WP:Activist
• WP:Advocacy
• WP:Advertising
• WP:Coatrack
• WP:DYK#Selection_criteria ("Articles and hooks that focus unduly on negative aspects of living individuals or promote one side of an ongoing dispute should be avoided.")
• nofollow
• WP:NPOV
• WP:Search engine optimization
• WP:Soap

• Taylor, Mike. "Wikipedia Breathes New Life Into Seminal Scientology Expose", FishbowlNY, March 15, 2010.