Using a Wiki Instead of WordPress?

by 9 replies
11
I have been playing around a bit with TWiki and MediaWiki and thought they would make an ideal CMS for larger/authority sites and especially curated sites.

I know MediaWiki is fully skinable and it is a lot more user friendly than Twiki and I can't see what it couldn't be made to look like the a normal site - but with all the benefits and automatic interlinking of a Wiki.

If you dared you could also open it up to user contributions for free content generation, moderated of course.

Just curious to see if any of you guys have given it a go before or maybe I am 5 years out of data? hah!
#search engine optimization #wiki #wordpress
  • I have a decent amount of experience with MediaWiki. What would you like to know?

    Feel free to PM me.
  • Sorry, Michael.

    I'm not really after instructions on using MediaWiki but rather everyone's thoughts on using a Wiki as the base for a site rather than WordPress.

    The SEO benefits seems very strong and the easy to interact with the community has to be a big plus too. It allows for more than just user comments.
  • There's no reason why it couldn't work. Most of us are so entrenched in Wordpress that we can hardly see other options. Give it a try and launch a WSO if it works, could blow our minds.
  • Banned
    I like the idea, but wouldn't moderating the site by a huge job?

    The larger the site gets, the more spam you would have to deal with.
  • Well the user editing can be disabled or controlled I just thought that would add another way to generate content, if you would rather be a moderator than a content creator.
  • Can't say I've used them specifically, but if they model after Wikipedia then your site structure and internal linking is going to be a nightmare.
  • The internal link structure of Wikipedia is one of the reasons it works so well with search engines. You still get a traditional sidebar for main topics but everything else is 'siloed' automatically.

    Users love it too - people spend hours flowing through links on Wikipedia. They land on one page of interest and just go through from there. Unlike a normal site, a wiki requires less effort to find other subjects on the site that interest you.
    • [1] reply
    • They incorrectly "bless" some poor URL construction, but nothing like wolfram alpha does to hyperlinks.
  • How are they incorrectly blessing anything? A Wiki URL is as good as any other?

    I would love to know why you think a Wiki/Wikipedia has poor on-site SEO and URL construction. Can you explain your reasoning, please?
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    Using a Wiki Instead of WordPress?

    I have been playing around a bit with TWiki and MediaWiki and thought they would make an ideal CMS for larger/authority sites and especially curated sites. I know MediaWiki is fully skinable and it is a lot more user friendly than Twiki and I can't see what it couldn't be made to look like the a normal site - but with all the benefits and automatic interlinking of a Wiki.