WikiTravel.org is a worldwide travel guide edit this microsummary

Wiki edit


edit Wikitravel: Free Worldwide Travel Guides

Wikitravel is a free resource using wiki technology to provide a world-travel guide. Operating under the assumption that travelers can provide first-hand information about their trips in a more timely and reliable fashion than travel books, Wikitravel offers over 15,000 destination guides and other articles in English, with additional articles in 16 other languages.

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edit Licensing

Because travel information is so often utilized away from computers, Wikitravel articles has an emphasis on presentation that allows them to be easily presented in other formats, particularly in print. As such, Wikitravel's content is provided free of charge under the Creative Commons by-attribution, share-alike license.

edit Guides and Structure

Travel guides on Wikitravel include destination guides and itineraries, with articles containing not only information about the city or region it's describing, but also helpful tidbits on traveling to and from the location, getting around, what to see and do, and places to stay or eat, all contributed by other travelers and their experiences.

Because of their contents, Wikitravel tends to be more highly structured than a variety of other wikis, with an internal Manual of Style with information on structure as well as how to format and write articles.

edit History

Founded in 2003 by Evan Prodromou and Maj Jenkins-Prodromou, Wikitravel was acquired along with World66.com -- another travel wiki -- by Internet Brands in April of 2006. Internet Brands specializes in consumer information websites including CarsDirect.com, Autos.com, Loan.com, WikiCars.org, and DoItYourself.com. After the acquisition, it was announced that Internet Brands planned on continuing Wikitravel's focus on collaborative, objective travel guides, while World66.com would begin to focus more and more on personal experiences and reviews. Both Evan and Maj remained with Wikitravel after the acquisition

On May 1, 2007, Wikitravel was honored with the prestigious Webby Award for Best Travel Website.

See also Wikitravel's Milestones page.

edit Languages

Wikitravel is available in 17 different languages, click on a link to go directly to the Wikitravel page for that language:

Other Language-related Resources on Wikitravel

  • Wikitravel Shared -- Image depository for all Wikitravel language versions, and the community collaborating place for cross-wiki discussions and issues.
  • Phrasebooks -- Wikitravel also includes phrasebooks for various locations, allowing for various dialect and derivations of language based on region.

edit Wikitravel in the News

edit Address

1481 rue Rachel E
Montreal QC H2J 2K3 Canada

edit Contact

Evan Prodromou and Michele Jenkins-Prodromou
+1 514 525 0620
3102451 Nova Scotia Company
+1 514 525 0620, Fax: +1 514 525 0620

edit Community Reviews

edit The best travel resource on the web!

It'a a wiki, so everyone collaborates -- truly the wisdom of crowds.

edit A great, independent travel guide

Lots of information there, even has an article on space flights.


WikiTravel still the best.

Especially their coverage of Ireland and Dublin and remains my favorite travel website on the internet today.

edit Discussion

edit Featured Page Nomination

WikiTravel.org was formerly nominated to be a featured wiki page. After a few months of discussion (see below), there still needs to be work done on the page. If you plan to work on this page and re-nominate it to be featured, please do the following:

  1. Copy {{:WikiTravel.org/FeatureDiscussion}} and add it to the relevant section on Under Discussion page in alphabetical order.
  2. Edit this page and replace {{FeatureMeOld}} with {{FeatureMeCurrent}} in the discussion section.
  • First nominated on 1-March-2007.
  • Thanks for nominating the page. We're trying to Feature pages that are good examples of a full wiki pages, beyond just featuring good websites. This is a great page/organization to keep on our radar, but the article itself needs work. Suggestions for edits might include:
    • A fuller explanation about Wikitravel.
    • Testimonials
    • Pictures/logo
These are just my thoughts. I know we've got some major Wikitravel enthusiasts in our community, let's start building this page into a flagship example of how cool an AboutUs article can look! --TakKendrick
agree! - Ray
  • Taken off nomination on 4-June-2007. It's been a few months with no comments and the page hasn't really been updated. Feel free to make a few changes and re-nominate. It's a shame, because we all love Wikitravel.org on staff here, and I'd love to feature this if just a little more love could be put into this WikiPage. -- TakKendrick
  • I re-worked the text here, adding in a bunch of information from a variety of sources as previously the text here was largely pulled directly from the About info on the page. Would still like to invite people from the Wikitravel community to add their insights to this article. -- TakKendrick 02:06, 25 June 2007 (PDT)
  • After the update and in correspondence with their anniversary tomorrow, we featured Wikitravel.org today. -- TakKendrick | Talk 17:47, 23 July 2007 (PDT)

edit Related Domains

edit External Links

  • Alexa: Wikitravel.org
  • Austria Travel: [1]
  • 5 Reasons Wiki Travel Guides are Better than Guidebooks: [2]


edit AboutUs Featured Wiki Page

Image:FeaturedSiteBadge.gif
Featured on 23 July 2007

Featured Text -- Just as there is an AboutUs Community, we at AboutUs also like to celebrate things happening in the global wiki community as well. Tomorrow -- July 24 -- marks the four year anniversary of Wikitravel.org's first article and user (as well as the date MediaWiki was installed and operational) and we wanted to give a shout out to them on their milestone. For those not in the know, Wikitravel is a great travel resource complete with travel-guide quality pages including destination guides and itineraries. They offer information in 17 different languages, with over 15,000 guides and other articles in English. As a wiki, Wikitravel provides a collaborative space for travelers to find and share first-hand information. Last May, Wikitravel was honored with the prestigious Webby Award for Best Travel Website, beating out such heavy hitters as Expedia.com and TripAdvisor.com.

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WikiTravel.org Home Page Analysis Summary

Titles & Headings The title and headings on the home page tell people and search engines what a website is about.
Analyze the title & headings of the home page for free or the entire site.
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Links & Images Relevant links to other sites are good for people and search engines. Images on a web page should be described for visually impaired visitors and search engines.
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Title

The title of a web page appears in search results as the link to that page. Learn more ...

Purpose

The title of a web page appears as a clickable link in search results and bookmarks. A descriptive, compelling home page title with relevant keywords can increase the number of people visiting the site.

Search Engines

Search engines view the text of the title tag as a strong indication of what the page is about. Accurate keywords in the title tag can help the page rank better in search results.

Length

A title tag should have fewer than 70 characters, including spaces. Major search engines won't display more than that.

Content

The title tag of your home page (and any other page on your site) should not contain the site’s domain name or URL. These will appear near the title in search results, so use your 70 characters to tell people what the page is about. The title tag should not contain any HTML, because it will be displayed incorrectly or not at all.

  • Good: This web page has a title tag.
  • Good: The title tag is a good length.
The title of this site's home page:
Free Worldwide Travel Guides - Wikitravel

Meta Description

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Purpose

The meta description tells searchers what a web page is about. It is often displayed below the title in search results, and helps people decide if they want to visit that website.

Length

Search engines will read 200 to 250 characters, but usually display only 150, including spaces. The first 150 characters of the meta description should contain the most important keywords for that web page. Using fewer than 50 characters could mean you’re not saying enough about the page.

Content

The meta description should be engaging, and should include keywords that accurately reflect what visitors will find on the web page. The keywords should be the same ones that a site's potential customers are using to search. Include a site’s location if it is important.

  • Warning: The meta description is longer than 150 characters. Search engines will probably display only the first 150 characters, including spaces.
The meta description for this site's home page:
Open source travel guide featuring up-to-date information on attractions, hotels, restaurants, travel tips and more. Free and reliable advice written by Wikitravellers from around the globe.

H1 Headings

The H1 heading is an important sentence or phrase on a web page that quickly and clearly tells people and search engines what they can expect to find there. Learn more ...

Just one H1

In most cases, a web page should have just one H1 heading. Using multiple H1 headings is okay if that is a logical way to organize the page, but they should be used sparingly. That’s because search engines can view multiple H1 headings as an attempt to signal that all the content on a page is equally important, a tactic that’s seen as an attempt to game the search engine algorithms.

Purpose

Search engines look for an H1 heading to determine what a page is about. Human visitors do, too.

Content and placement

The H1 heading appears on the web page itself, unlike the page title, which people will see mostly in search results.

The H1 tag (which contains the H1 heading) is usually listed first among the other heading tags for a page. None of the major search engines, however, will penalize a site for listing H2 through H6 tags ahead of the H1 tag.

The H1 heading for a page should be different from its title. Each can target different important keywords for better SEO.

  • Good: This page has one H1 heading.
H1 heading for this site's home page:
Main Page

WikiTravel.org in search results

You can see below how most search engines will display this site's home page in search results. The title is used as the link to the page, and the meta description appears below the title.

Free Worldwide Travel Guides - Wikitravel

Open source travel guide featuring up-to-date information on attractions, hotels, restaurants, travel tips and more. Free and reliable advice written by Wik...

wikitravel.org/

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Robots

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Purpose

Website owners usually use robots.txt to let search engines know which pages or sections of their site shouldn't be indexed — for example, web contact forms, print versions of web pages and other content that's duplicated elsewhere on the site. Robots.txt can also be used to request that specific robots not index a site. For more information, read How To Use Robots.txt.

Be careful!

If you're going to use robots.txt, be careful not to accidentally exclude search engines from pages you want people to find. To learn more, read Don't Block Search Engine Crawlers.

Search engine robots

You'll need to know the names of specific search engine robots - or "bots" – if you’re going to exclude any or all of them from any part of your site.

  • Google’s bot is called Googlebot. Google is the world’s largest search engine, and is where many people discover new websites.
  • Bing’s bot is called msnbot. Bing also provides search results to people using Yahoo to search the Web. Together, Bing and Yahoo are the second largest search resource, after Google.
  • Baidu’s bot is called Baiduspider. Baidu is a major search engine in China, and the number of people using it is increasing rapidly.
  • AboutUs.org’s bot is called AboutUsBot. To create a Site Report, AboutUs uses crawling technology that’s similar to what search engines use.
  • Good: This website’s robots.txt file is not blocking major search engines from crawling its pages. Your website can appear in any engine’s search results.

Canonical Url

This website can live at www.WikiTravel.org or WikiTravel.org. It's best for your site's visibility to live at just one URL, or web address. You'll want to create a 301 redirect to the URL you choose from the other URL. Learn more ...

Choose one or the other

Whichever of these URLs you choose, make sure your website lives ONLY at that location, which is called the canonical URL for your site.

Be careful!

If you choose www.MyWebsite.com for your site, make sure people who don't type www can get to your site, too. Create a permanent 301 redirect from MyWebsite.com to www.MyWebsite.com.

If the same web page exists at two different URLs, people can choose to link to one or the other. Links from other sites to your website are valuable — they tell search engines that your site is important to people. By splitting valuable links between two identical pages, you're diluting the power of those links to help a page rank higher in search results.

Learn more about why you should have just one home page: Read Twin Home Pages: Classic SEO Mistake

  • Problem: One of your domains resolves correctly, and the other redirects to an entirely different domain.
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Web Presence

Search Engine Visibility

Check this site's prominence around the web and in major search engines.

Backlinks

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value for Alexa

Indexed Pages

value for Google 3,410,000
value for Bing 0

Rank

value for Quantcast 2,761
value for Compete Not Available
value for Alexa 3,358

Date Last Crawled

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value for Bing Not Available

Check this site's presence on news sharing and community sites.

Social Media Visibility

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value for Dmoz 94
value for Google Groups 0
value for Yahoo Answers 1,224
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Redirectory

Below we show domains that redirect to WikiTravel.org.

We survey every domain on the Internet ending in .com, .net, or .edu to see if any redirect to this website. Large or famous websites like Amazon.com often have many sites redirecting to them.

Domains that redirect to the home page of WikiTravel.org

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Capture visitors who type the wrong name

It can make a lot of sense to redirect a domain to an existing web page. For example, many people are likely to type wikipedia.com when they are really looking for wikipedia.org. Creating a redirect from wikipedia.com to wikipedia.org helps these people get to the site they want.

4 domains redirect to the home page of WikiTravel.org.

Domains that redirect to a page within WikiTravel.org

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Get people to a specific web page

Creating a redirect from a simple domain name helps people find an existing web page that has a long, hard-to-remember URL. For example firefox.com redirects to http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/.

We have not found any domains that redirect to pages within WikiTravel.org.

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