Type into Google almost any search term involving a person, place or event and you’ll more than likely get a Wikipedia link in the number one slot. This has been going on for years and has helped to ensure that Wikipedia is one of the most-visited, most used and most quoted websites on the net.

But with Google’s recent announcement that they are planning to start a Wikipedia competitor, will they tweak their search algorithim to ensure that their service gets a higher search engine position at the expense of Wikipedia? If so, is it fair or ethical for Google to change things so their service unfairly comes out on top while a rival languishes underneath? And what does that say for the credibility of PageRank?

Just to quickly remind you, the more links a page has, the higher it goes in search results. If lots of people link to you, Google assumes that your page is both popular and useful and so the page gradually gets more and more of a prominent spot on the search page. That’s PageRank at work. Since people link to Wikipedia all the time to help explain things on their websites / blogs (including me), this has generally helped Wikipedia to be at the top of the Google pages whether you’re searching for Einstein, England or eggs. The number of trackbacks for Wikipedia is probably staggering.

But when Knol (apparently short for “Knowledge”) finally starts up, it’s hard to imagine Google allowing Wikipedia to gain a higher spot on Google search results at the expense of Knol. They will naturally want their own Knol pages to be the most visited, most popular site for people to use. But with the PageRank structure in place, it will be hard to dislodge Wikipedia from the top spots, with all the trackbacks they will have accumulated. It will take quite some time for Knol to build up the same level of trackbacks and the same level of user goodwill and enthusiasm that Wikipedia currently boasts.

So will Google quietly do the dirty and tweak the search algorithims to give Knol a leg up? Will they find an excuse to reduce Wikipedia’s PageRank? Or will they be chivalrous and adopt a “may the best site win” attitude? I personally hope they will choose door number 3.

Critics have also pointed out that Google cannot possibly offer unbiased and objective search results when they have their own content to push to users. Their criticisms were reinforced when Udi Manber, vice president for engineering at Google was quoted as saying Google wanted these articles to become “the first thing someone who searches for this topic for the first time will want to read.”

Since there is no working Knol webpage up yet, it will be quite some time before we see what form Knol will take and if Wikipedia should start worrying about its future. You never know, Knol may never come out of private beta testing and Jimmy Wales can continue to sleep easy at night, secure in the knowledge that his site still has the coveted top search spots.