Is your company eligible for Wikipedia?
Wikipedia's core requirement is notability — significant coverage in independent, reliable sources. Use this 8-question checklist to assess your readiness before requesting a full audit.
Three things Wikipedia editors look for
All three must be present. One or two strong dimensions cannot compensate for a weak third.
Independent sources
Coverage must come from sources not affiliated with your company. Press releases, company blogs, paid articles and sponsored content do not count, regardless of where they were published.
Reliable sources
Reputable publications, established news outlets or recognized industry references. Personal blogs, forums, social media and content farms are generally not sufficient as primary references.
Substantial coverage
Brief mentions, listicles and passing references are not enough. Sources should contain meaningful, in-depth treatment — multiple paragraphs about your company, not a one-line mention in a roundup.
8-question eligibility checklist
Tick every statement that applies to your company. Your score and a recommended next step appear below the list and update as you tick.
Your source profile looks like a viable Wikipedia candidate. The next step is an eligibility audit: we independently verify the source quality, score moderation risk per language edition and recommend the safest rollout. No publication guarantee — even strong candidates can fail community review if specific source-quality nuances are missed.
You have some viable signals but likely have gaps in source quality, depth or independence. A Source Readiness review identifies exactly what's missing before you commit to a full audit, and gives a 3–6 month media-strategy roadmap. Going straight to submission with this profile risks a deletion nomination.
Your current source base is unlikely to pass Wikipedia's editorial review. Submitting now would probably result in deletion. The Source Readiness Program closes the gap: source gap analysis, media strategy recommendations, source-quality scoring and a structured 3–6 month plan to build legitimate independent coverage. We do not manufacture sources or pay journalists.
This is a self-assessment — a professional audit is more thorough. We score per-edition risk, look at specific source independence (which a checklist cannot evaluate) and assess editorial sensitivity for each target language community.
Why eligible-looking companies fail review
These are the patterns we see most often when an audit returns "not yet" — even when the company is genuinely notable in their market.
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Only self-published sources
Press releases, the company blog and founder LinkedIn posts dominate the source pack. Wikipedia treats these as primary, not independent — they cannot establish notability on their own no matter how many of them exist.
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Media coverage exists but is too brief
A roundup mentioning 30 startups in two sentences each is not substantial coverage. Wikipedia editors look for sources that cover your company specifically in depth — multiple paragraphs about you, not a name-drop.
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Paid or sponsored articles treated as independent
A "thought leadership" piece on an industry site that accepts contributed content is not independent coverage, even if it looks editorial. Editors check publication policies and content sponsorship disclosures.
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Notable in reality, undocumented in media
A company can be clearly significant — large customer base, real revenue, industry recognition — but if the independent press has not covered the story, Wikipedia cannot create notability where verifiable sources don't yet exist.
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English-only coverage for multilingual ambitions
Coverage exists in English but the target multilingual editions (German, French, Italian) require local-language sources. We see this often with US/UK companies pushing into European Wikipedia editions.
Want a more thorough assessment?
Our audit is more thorough than any self-assessment. We review your full source base and give a realistic per-edition risk profile.