What does "qualify for Wikipedia" actually mean?
It means the company is notable in Wikipedia's narrow sense: independent publications have already taken sufficient note of it. Notability is not importance, success or fame. A profitable 200-person firm can fail it; a defunct regional newspaper can pass it. The article follows the coverage and never substitutes for it.
Two terms used below, defined once. Articles for Creation (AfC) is the review queue where an independent editor checks a draft before it goes live. Articles for Deletion (AfD) is the public discussion where editors decide whether a published page stays. Both judge the same thing: do the sources hold?
Which two policies decide? GNG and WP:NCORP
A company has to clear two gates, and the second is the one that catches businesses by surprise.
The first is the General Notability Guideline (WP:GNG): a topic is presumed notable if it has received significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of it. The second is WP:NCORP, written because companies have the motive and the budget to manufacture coverage. It repeats the GNG demand but applies it more strictly, and it adds a test for independence of content: WP:ORGIND. It also requires depth: WP:CORPDEPTH says coverage must tell the reader more than that the company exists, what it sells or what it earns.
The practical consequence: when someone says "you easily meet general notability", the follow-up is "and NCORP?" That is the standard your page meets at AfD, and any volunteer can start that discussion at any time. Notability is not a hoop cleared once at creation; it is the standard the page lives under permanently.
What do "significant, independent, reliable, secondary" mean in practice?
A source counts only if it passes all four tests; Wikipedia's shorthand for the combined test is WP:SIRS. Read each word the way a reviewer does.
- Significant (WP:SIGCOV). The source addresses the company directly and in depth, enough to write several encyclopedic sentences without inventing anything. A passing mention in an industry roundup, or a CEO quote inside an article about the sector, is not coverage of the company.
- Independent. No stake in the subject, and no content originated by it. Your site, your blog, your press releases, placed content and articles that reprint what you told a journalist all fail, even on a respected masthead.
- Reliable. A newsroom with named editors and fact-checking. Wikipedia keeps a community-maintained perennial sources list rating outlets as generally reliable, unreliable or case by case. Our guide to Wikipedia-eligible sources goes deeper.
- Secondary. One step removed from the event: a journalist's own reporting and analysis, not a filing, a press release or a transcript.
Put together, the bar is several substantial, independently originated, professionally published, analytical pieces about the company specifically. Most source lists contain two or three that clear all four words, plus a dozen that clear two or three and feel like they should count. That second group is where eligibility usually fails.
What does not count as coverage, with examples?
Coverage that works as marketing often does nothing here, because it fails one of the four words. Below, "Company 1" and so on are hypothetical illustrations.
| Source profile | Verdict | Why |
|---|---|---|
| "Company 1 raises a funding round", repeated across tech blogs | Fail | Routine announcement; NCORP discounts it (WP:ORGTRIV) |
| Straight Q&A with the founder of Company 2 | Fail | The subject's own words; not independent content under WP:ORGIND |
| Contributor column under a major business-media logo | Fail | Self-published by an outside writer; editors check the byline (why a famous URL is not automatically a staff article) |
| Wire-service press release | Fail | Primary, no editorial oversight |
| Company profile in a database or directory | Fail | Confirms existence; says nothing about notability |
| "Top 50 startups" list with one line about Company 3 | Fail | Passing mention, often pay-to-enter |
| Feature built around an interview plus substantial independent reporting | Borderline | Counts only as far as the journalist's own analysis dominates |
| Award covered in a real article by an independent outlet | Borderline | The secondary coverage matters, not the award itself |
| Trade-journal investigation not driven by an announcement | Borderline | Can count; editors read trade press skeptically, and WP:AUD asks whether coverage reaches beyond a niche |
| In-depth staff-written profile or investigation in a national or regional newspaper | Pass | Significant, independent, reliable, secondary |
None of this means the coverage was worthless. It built awareness and supported sales. It just does not move the notability verdict, and confusing "press we got" with "press Wikipedia counts" is the most expensive misunderstanding in this field.
What are the two rules companies miss?
One wire story reprinted everywhere is one source. A story distributed through a wire or syndication deal can appear on fifty sites in an afternoon. Wikipedia counts independent origins, so those fifty collapse into one. Editors at AfD do this collapsing quickly, and a list of "30 media mentions" often shrinks to two or three independent pieces.
Coverage should be sustained, not a spike. Several outlets reporting the same funding round in one week show that the event was newsworthy, not that the organization is notable. Reviewers look for coverage that recurs over time from different angles. If your best sources cluster inside a two-week window, expect an argument at review even when each piece is excellent.
How many sources does a company need, and how likely is it?
Policy sets no fixed number; reviewers look for multiple sources. In our assessments, three or more clean, independent features spread across time make a page realistic. One or two plus a stack of borderlines is uncertain. All borderlines and fails means "not yet".
For orientation, our own Notability Index (2018 to 2026 assessments, our own method, percentages only) shows how unevenly the bar falls by industry. In our sample, 98% of Crypto / Web3 assessments and 96% of Gambling / iGaming assessments landed in the low band, against 19% for Finance / Fintech and 22% for Media / Creator / Entertainment. That is a pattern in our data, not a rule of Wikipedia.
How do I run the source test on my own coverage?
List every piece of coverage from the last 24 to 36 months. For each, ask the four questions, collapse reprints of the same story into one entry, and mark the rest pass, borderline or fail using the table above. Then check the dates: are the passes spread over time, or clustered?
Two free self-serve aids help: the media list tool and the Notability Index. They are a pre-screen. The paid Wikipedia notability audit (from €490, credited toward the page if you order it within one month) runs the same exercise as a reviewer would, source by source, and returns a written verdict: pass, borderline or not yet.
What should I do if the company does not qualify yet?
"Not yet" is a sequencing problem, not a verdict. Climb in order:
- Wikidata. Its inclusion bar is far lower than Wikipedia's, and a sourced item feeds knowledge panels and AI answers. See Wikidata and the knowledge graph.
- Earned coverage. The real work: independent journalists choosing to write about the company, over months. This is an earned-media project, not a Wikipedia one.
- Re-test. When new independent features exist, run the source test again.
- The page. Only then does Wikipedia page creation become a writing and disclosure exercise on solid evidence.
Skipping rungs is how pages end up deleted at AfD. A founder is judged separately from the company; see company, founder and public figure notability.
Frequently asked questions
No. Companies are also judged against WP:NCORP, which applies the same significant-coverage demand more strictly and adds the independence-of-content test. A company that clears GNG but not NCORP is still likely to be deleted at AfD.
Not by itself. Notability always rests on qualifying independent coverage, not on size or listing status, although large companies usually have more of that coverage.
No. Wikipedia's other-stuff-exists argument is routinely rejected. The competitor may have stronger sources, may have been created before standards tightened, or may simply not have been challenged yet.
Yes, if they are reliable, independent and in-depth. Wikipedia's verifiability policy accepts foreign-language sources; editors may ask for a translation of the key passage.
They can. A staff-written, in-depth local feature is a valid source, but reviewers ask whether coverage extends beyond a niche or one town, so a page resting only on local or trade pieces is more exposed at review.
Not alone. A list entry is a passing mention. What helps is independent coverage of the win, or of the ranking itself, that discusses the company in depth.
Policy sets no minimum, but reviewers look for sustained attention rather than one event. In practice, evidence spread across several months or years is much safer than a cluster around one announcement.
How WikiBusines helps
We assess notability against WP:GNG and WP:NCORP before quoting a page, and we say "not yet" when that is the answer. We never guarantee that an article will be published. Any paid work is disclosed on Wikipedia in WikiBusines' name.
- Notability audit, from €490, credited toward the page if you order it within one month: each source scored against the four tests, reprints collapsed, a written verdict.
- Wikipedia page creation, from €2,400 for English, 4 to 5 weeks, with 90 days of monitoring and guarantee after publication; 80% refund if a published page cannot be defended after 3 attempts within that window.
- Wikidata, from €680, as the first rung when the page is premature.
Start with the free 10-minute assessment: contact us. If the case is unclear, we offer the paid notability audit from €490, credited toward the page if you order it within one month.
Authors and editorial policy
Bohdan DubylovskyiCo-founder and CBO, WikiBusines→
Roman MelnykCo-founder & Chief Editor, WikiBusines→The article was prepared by the WikiBusines co-founders. We sell paid Wikipedia services, so we disclose this interest: paid editing is always declared on Wikipedia in WikiBusines' name, and claims about the rules are backed by links to primary sources.
Editorial policy: payment disclosure, conflicts of interest, sources