A company's guide to Wikipedia-eligible sources
The single biggest predictor of whether a Wikipedia page survives is the quality of its sources. Not the writing. Not the editor. Not the topic. The sources.
For most comms and PR teams, the gap between "media coverage we're proud of" and "media coverage Wikipedia accepts" comes as a surprise. Here's the working framework.
What Wikipedia means by "reliable source"
Wikipedia's reliable-sources guideline asks three questions about each citation:
- Is the source independent of the subject? A magazine the company owns isn't independent. An interview where the founder is the only quoted source provides minimal independent verification.
- Does the source have editorial oversight? Newsrooms with named editors and fact-checking practices count. Self-published blogs, content farms, and AI-generated articles don't.
- Is the source reliable for the kind of claim being made? A travel magazine is a fine source for an article about a hotel; it's a weaker source for a regulatory claim. Wikipedia's editors take subject-matter expertise into account.
The Wikipedia community maintains a perennial-sources list that classifies hundreds of common outlets as generally reliable, generally unreliable, or context-dependent. If your prospective citations aren't on the green list, expect questions.
What counts (mostly)
Tier 1 — generally accepted without question:
- BBC, Reuters, Associated Press, Bloomberg, Financial Times, Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Washington Post
- Major regional broadsheets (Le Monde, Süddeutsche Zeitung, El País, La Repubblica)
- Established trade publications with editorial independence (Wired, TechCrunch — though increasingly scrutinised)
- Academic publications (peer-reviewed journals, university press books)
- Regulatory filings (SEC, EU regulatory bodies, equivalent national bodies)
Tier 2 — accepted in context:
- National-language major outlets (varies by language edition)
- Industry trade press with clear editorial standards
- Government publications and statistics agencies
- Major non-profit research reports (when independent of the subject)
- Established blogs by recognized subject-matter experts
What doesn't count (despite looking professional)
Press release wires. PR Newswire, BusinessWire, GlobeNewswire, Cision — these distribute press releases. They have no editorial oversight of content. A press release on PR Newswire and a Reuters article are not equivalent sources, no matter how similar they look in search results.
Sponsored content. Anything labelled "sponsored," "promoted," "branded content," or "in partnership with" — even when published on a tier-1 outlet's domain — is not editorially independent. Forbes Contributor pieces and similar paid-author content fall in this category.
Interview pieces where the subject is the only source. A "thought leadership" piece where the founder is the sole quoted voice provides minimal independent verification. This is one of the most common surprises — companies often have many such pieces and assume they're "media coverage."
Affiliate blogs. Sites that exist primarily for SEO or affiliate revenue, with thin editorial standards, don't carry weight even when they look professional.
The subject's own materials. Company website, blog, annual report, investor decks, press releases — useful for primary facts but cannot establish notability or be the basis for substantive article content.
Wikipedia itself. Circular citation — Wikipedia cannot cite Wikipedia.
The "in-depth" requirement
Beyond reliability, Wikipedia requires "significant coverage" — not passing mentions. A two-paragraph note in a regional newspaper saying "[Brand] opened a new office" is reliable but not in-depth. The article needs to have substantive things to say about the subject — what it does, why it matters, what its history is — not just mention it in passing.
For organization notability, the rough working bar is three independent reliable sources with substantive coverage beyond passing mentions. Fewer than three is usually a notability challenge. More than three with depth is usually fine.
How agencies should be assessing sources
Before any drafting begins, a competent Wikipedia agency produces a written source assessment that, for each piece of media coverage you provided, answers:
- Is the outlet on Wikipedia's reliable-sources list? (Yes / Conditional / No.)
- Is the coverage independent of the subject? (Truly third-party, or interview / sponsored / contributed?)
- Is the coverage substantive? (How many paragraphs about the subject specifically, vs. passing mentions?)
- What specific facts can the article support from this source?
If the assessment comes back with 3+ green-light sources covering substantive facts across topics (history, products, leadership, milestones), the page is realistic. If it comes back with weak sources or mostly passing mentions, the agency should be honest about that and either recommend building media coverage first or pivoting to a different platform (Wikidata-only, Simple English Wikipedia).
What to do if your source base is weak
Three options, in order of effort:
Build the source base. A 6-12 month media coverage program targeted at outlets Wikipedia accepts. More expensive and slower than a Wikipedia page itself, but the only path that creates lasting notability.
Pivot to Simple English Wikipedia. The notability bar is meaningfully lower than the main edition while preserving most of the SEO and AI-visibility benefits.
Pivot to Wikidata only. A clean structured-data entity captures Knowledge Graph and LLM coverage without needing a Wikipedia article at all. Realistic for almost any brand with a few independent sources.
A small library to bookmark
If your comms or legal team wants to dig into Wikipedia's own policy framework:
- Wikipedia:Reliable sources
- Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Perennial sources
- Wikipedia:Notability (organizations and companies)
- Wikipedia:Conflict of interest
- Wikipedia:Identifying PR
The policies are written in plain language and answer most of the questions internal teams have before signing off on a Wikipedia project.
Send us your media coverage URLs at team@wikibusines.com — we'll run the source assessment and reply within one business day with an honest read.