A successful Wikipedia article is accurate, encyclopedic, and lasting. 

But we get it. That’s not a chart you can drop into a board deck. So let’s dig into why Wikipedia matters, what “success” really means on the platform, and which metrics (yes, actual numbers!) you can use to track progress.

Your team put together a thoughtful, well-written version of the Wikipedia article. Why reinvent the wheel?

Here’s the honest truth: even if your draft looks good, it's probably more of a wishlist than a Wikipedia-ready article.

When New York’s Poster House opened in 2019, it made history as the first museum in the U.S. dedicated to poster art. But by 2024, its Wikipedia article hadn’t kept up.

The existing page was focused on the museum’s early days, missing updated coverage from its post-COVID reopening, and lacking key details about its growing collection, exhibitions, and special initiatives. 

That’s when Poster House partnered with Lumino.

Visibility and credibility are crucial for any brand, especially nonprofits that rely heavily on their online reputations. These organizations understand that the information journalists, donors, and key stakeholders find about them online determines how they're perceived and potentially shapes news coverage about them in the future.

We're thrilled to see more comms teams formalizing their vendor selection, but we've also noticed a common theme: most RFPs don’t actually include the right questions. They focus on turnaround times and pricing models—important stuff, sure—but they skip the essential parts that determine whether your vendor will deliver real, lasting results.

Generative AI tools like ChatGPT, Google Gemini, Microsoft Copilot, and DuckDuckGo’s DuckAssist rely on Wikipedia more than most people realize. And it’s not just in training. Wikipedia is also referenced in real time by many tools, often forming the backbone of the summaries, answers, and blurbs AI generates about people, companies, and products.

Most Wikipedia articles are not created equally. A mix of onsite and offsite factors can essentially render two articles that cover similar topics (or similar brands) effectively impossible to assess against one another.

Wikipedia has an outsized presence in Google search results, as information from the digital encyclopedia is perfectly structured to answer user search queries. This post explores exactly how and why Google utilizes Wikipedia in order to improve search results.

With Wikipedia appearing so prominently in Google search results, brands have a clear incentive to harness that reach by optimizing their profile there. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, though, not a promotional website, and editors maintain strict guidelines as to what kind of content can stay on the site.

Wikipedia has an outsized presence in Google search results, as information from the digital encyclopedia is perfectly structured to answer user search queries. This post explores exactly how and why Google utilizes Wikipedia in order to improve search results.

Wikipedia’s editors are just like you and me, and understanding their motivations and the rules they follow is a crucial component to successful engagement on the site.

At Lumino, we help large organizations improve and manage their presence on Wikipedia. I'm not one to brag, but we're the best in the business at this type of engagement. We strictly follow Wikipedia's rule for conflict-of-interest editing, work constructively with the site's community to implement changes, and ultimately improve the accuracy and reliability of the encyclopedia's entries by adding factual, up-to-date, and reliably sourced information.

Flags basically mean that one or more Wikipedia editors have decided the article’s content doesn’t align with the site’s guidelines. This can be because of several specific problems. Flags immediately signal to readers that content in the article can’t be trusted.

For an entity (person, place, thing, etc.) to be eligible for a Wikipedia article, Wikipedia editors need to see clear proof that it's notable—or "worthy of notice" to use the parlance of the site—and more specifically, that it meets Wikipedia's specific Notability guidelines. Learn more.