Google invests in the future of knowledge panels with Wikimedia Enterprise partnership

The Internet Archive has also signed on with the non-profit foundation

Google's success largely stems from its ability to connect users with the data they're looking for, and sometimes that means working with a few partners. The Wikimedia Foundation, the non-profit entity behind Wikipedia itself, established a new offering called Wikimedia Enterprise in 2021 as a paid service for big tech companies that access a lot of Wikipedia data, helping them to work with it more efficiently. It's only now starting to announce partners who have signed up to take advantage, and Google is among the first.

Google has made several independent financial donations to the Wikimedia Foundation in the past, but this now represents a formal business relationship. The Enterprise service allows customers like Google to more easily reuse tons of information from Wikipedia and Wikimedia projects. The funding Google's providing here should help the Foundation increase the reach of its content and improve the experience of Wikimedia users beyond its own websites.

Google's knowledge panels in Search are a prime example of how it already uses Wikimedia data. The information pulled from Wikipedia is cited in these panels that appear prominently above results. Other companies interested in the Enterprise's services can now sign up on its website for a free trial account, which offers 10,000 on-demand requests and 30-day unlimited access to snapshots.

Apart from Google, the Internet Archive has also become an Enterprise customer, albeit a non-paying one. The archive owns the Wayback Machine portal that captures snapshots from websites or pages that have been deleted.

Will we see any big changes stem from this partnership? The Wikipedia Foundation's senior director of Earned Revenue, Lane Becker, expressed his enthusiasm at the collaborations but did not offer much insight into any plans Google has in store. Meanwhile, Wikipedia will continue to be free to use and rely on donations to support its existence.