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Answerworthy AI

Add a Wikidata URI to sameAs

What the scan checks: it looks at your Organization schema’s sameAs array for a Wikidata URI. Missing is a fail. It wants the entity form (wikidata.org/entity/Q...), not a Wikipedia link.

The /wiki/ form is a warning, not a fail. https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q12345 is the human-readable page; https://www.wikidata.org/entity/Q12345 is the Linked Data URI a consumer resolves. Same entity, and your intent is right, so this is a one-line rewrite rather than a failure. If you have it, the scan shows you the exact corrected string.

One reason this mistake is so widespread: schema.org’s own published example on its sameAs page still shows the /wiki/ form. It has been flagged as wrong since 2023. Use /entity/.

Why it matters for AI search visibility

Section titled “Why it matters for AI search visibility”

Wikidata is the single most undervalued AEO surface, and most operators never touch it. Brands with a verified Wikidata item are roughly 3x more likely to show a Google Knowledge Panel and 2.5 to 3x more likely to appear in AI Overview citations. Wikidata feeds Google’s Knowledge Graph, and it flows downstream into the labs’ training pipelines and retrieval indexes. Crucially, the notability bar is far lower than Wikipedia’s: most real B2B SaaS companies, agencies, and local businesses clear it with a registration and one independent source. Filing an item and citing it from your schema is one of the highest-return two-hour exercises in the whole playbook.

What E12 adds: the entity has to say something

Section titled “What E12 adds: the entity has to say something”

The companion check (E12) searches Wikidata for your brand and then reads the entity it finds, so “you have Wikidata” is no longer the whole verdict:

  • Statement count and Wikipedia link. An item with a couple of statements and no linked Wikipedia article is reported as an inert stub, not a clean pass. The manual’s own cited, fame-controlled study found a bare Wikidata presence has no independent effect; what does the work is an item that states your official website (P856), what you are (P31), your industry, founding date and headquarters.
  • Official website (P856) versus your domain. If the matching entity gives an official website that is not your site, that is a strong sign the item belongs to a different organization with the same name. The scan says so instead of crediting you with somebody else’s entity.
  • A Wikipedia article is reported, never prescribed. If the entity links to one, you see it as an observation. If it does not, that is normal and it is not on your to-do list: company notability (WP:NCORP) is a high bar most businesses do not clear, and commissioning an article runs into the paid-editing rules. Earn independent coverage instead.
  • Name collisions. If another entity answers to your brand name with a different classification, or your brand is an ordinary word, the scan flags it as a caveat on its own measurements: some of what “AI says about you” may be about the other entity. The fix lever is disambiguation, including a Wikidata P1889 (“different from”) statement.

How to fix it

Section titled “How to fix it”

1. Check for an existing entity. Search wikidata.org for your brand. If one exists but is thin, fill it in.

2. Create it if missing. File an item with the core properties: P31 (instance of) set to business, the canonical name, official website, founding date, founders, headquarters, industry, and the QIDs of your social profiles. Read the notability and verifiability guidance before filing.

3. Cite it from your Organization schema. Add the entity URI (not the /wiki/ article URL) to sameAs:

"sameAs": [
  "https://www.wikidata.org/entity/Q12345678",
  "https://www.linkedin.com/company/example"
]

Use the /entity/Q... form, which is the canonical machine-readable identifier. This closes the loop: the engine sees your site claim the Wikidata entity, and Wikidata’s authority reflects back onto your brand. Do this before the longer sameAs-mesh work in E5.