San Francisco, CA -- (SBWire) -- 04/01/2015 --Arabic content on the web is sparse but quickly proliferating. While this should be good news, the truth is that most of it is spam. Even despite this huge influx of low quality content, Arabic content still accounts for only 1% of total web content. Wikibia, a non-profit organization dedicated to spreading high quality scientific content in Arabic, is calling for action to be undertaken by web masters, search engines and citizens of the Arab world to raise the level of online discourse publicly available.
The word publicly is important. 30% of Arabic content is sealed away in private access forums. Those forums are nevertheless without proper moderation, and subsequently heavily abused by spammers.
Wikibia has criticized Google for giving these spam echo-chambers the ability to create authority for sites, which allows copy-paste robots to hijack content for black-hat SEO. Similarly, they have called out Facebook for allowing duplicate ads for copycat websites.
Wikibia are a non-profit organization dedicated to raising the level of Arabic discourse online, but most content is published by content-farm websites designed to wring ROI from advertising. As such, Wikibia demands that Search Engines respond to these challenges by supporting websites that act like true authorities.
Yassin Madwin, CEO of Wikibia explained, "Google should bid on relevancy and coverage; popularity in the Arabic web doesn't result in quality. The most trafficked websites in Arabic are duplicate junkyards. Equally, Facebook has created a market for misleading and distrusted news. Web spam in Arabic content is an epidemic. A lot of webmasters manipulate the SERPS using primitive techniques such as keyword stuffing and doorway pages and these techniques still work, due to the relative naivety of Arabic audiences. Arabic content is simply not a lucrative business for Google, so the algorithmic updates Google releases barely impact the Arabic market. We expect and demand better."
About Wikibia
Wikibia is a non-profit Arabic Scientific Wiki Magazine that was launched by a team of Moroccan youth. The magazine has since blossomed to help Arabic readers discover more about the latest scientific advances via the web. The site has a mission to add true value by making scientific advancements understandable and engaging for daily readers.
For more information please visit: http://www.wikibia.com
