Google(GOOG) has just announced public opening of their new wiki-knowledge product called “Knol”.
After months of deliberation since December of last year, this project is finally open for people to use.
Let’s take a quick look:
For responding to a Knol subject such as this Lung Cancer article, the user can leave a review with a rating. This supposedly validates the experts’ writing and becomes part of Knol’s rating system.
Knol also let’s you leave comments. I believe the comments section is really for those quick comments but the review section should be used for expert reviewers of that subject.
Let’s take a look at the writing aspects of Knol. You can write a new Knol yourself but you need to stay within these guidelines:
The Knol project is a site that hosts many knols — units of knowledge — written about various subjects. The authors of the knols can take credit for their writing, provide credentials, and elicit peer reviews and comments. Users can provide feedback, comments, related information. So the Knol project is a platform for sharing information, with multiple cues that help you evaluate the quality and veracity of information.
Knols are indexed by the big search engines, of course. And well-written knols become popular the same as regular web pages. The Knol site allows anyone to write and manage knols through a browser on any computer.
Writing a good Knol can definitely boost your SEO and online visibility, especially you are good at what you write about.
Here’s a screenshot of writing a new Knol. It looks pretty simple and basically it’s like Wikipedia but easier to use.
I don’t know how popular this Knol Project will become but I am sure many webmasters will take advantage of the early SEO you can gain from writing expertise articles.
Knol Resources
![Wikipedia \](http://zedomax.net/wp-content/uploads/2008/05/wikipedia-print-edition.gif "Wikipedia \")
