Google putting Wikipedia extracts at #1 - for Bruce Hornsby anyway

 by Martin Belam, 29 March 2007

I've only noticed this once when using Google recently, but it looks like they have been playing with putting direct extracts from Wikipedia in at #1 in their search results.

20060326_hornsby-top-result.gif

It doesn't look like a sponsored result i.e. advert, but the call-out where the "URL - size - Cached link - Similar pages link" metadata would usually be is distinctive and different:

According to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruce_Hornsby
20060326_hornsby-wiki-link.gif

Perhaps it was just a ploy to detract from the fact that at #3 in the organic results was a copyright takedown notice against their own YouTube service from Bruce Hornsby himself ;-)

20060326_honrsby-youtube.gif

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