Google Publishes 100,000th Knol

Google's Knol website has recently received its 100,000th article, known as knol, and the search engine was pleased to announce on its official blog that things were starting to go its way. The rapid expansion of the new website, which is only 5 months old, is nothing but good news, and everybody at Google expressed their admiration for the thousands of users that wrote on the site, contributing to its increasing database. Bad mouths have it that Google is currently going after Wikipedia, attempting to reclaim the first returned result to query position that the free encyclopedia owns for most one- or two-word searches.

“The Knol interface is now available in eight languages (Arabic, English, French, German, Italian, Korean, Portuguese and Spanish) and we are excited that our users are helping us translate it into many more languages using the Google in Your Language console,” the official blog reads.

“Encouraging people to contribute their knowledge online is particularly important for languages with limited web content, and we are glad to see that knols have been written in 59 different languages to date. It has been very exciting to have people all over the world come forward to help improve online content in their language,” it adds.

Knols are basically articles, much like Wikipedia entries, which are written by experts in the field, and are meant as an online “unit of knowledge,” as the site description says. As opposed to its more famed rival, Knol allows users to advertise their websites directly inside the article. Users are also allowed to name the articles however they see fit, and they can utterly disregard ambiguity issues when choosing to name their pieces in confusing terms.

“We are happy to see that most authors choose to accept moderated edits from their audience, and that the volume of suggested edits from readers is steadily growing. So, if you find yourself reading a knol and want to suggest an improvement, go ahead and press that edit button! You will be able to make the desired changes directly in the knol, and the author(s) will be able to review and act upon your suggestions. We look forward to seeing this new mode of online collaboration used more widely,” the blog reveals.