Wikidata for companies: when it makes sense and when it does not

What Wikidata is

Wikidata is a free, multilingual knowledge base run by the same foundation as Wikipedia. Instead of articles, it stores short facts in a fixed format: "this company, country, Luxembourg" or "this company, founded, 1987". Volunteers write and check the facts, and the rules are set by its community.

Its data is published under a public domain licence, so anyone may reuse it. Wikidata's own introduction says that anyone can use its data to build applications and services, and Wikipedia and other Wikimedia sites already load facts from it. That is why you hear about it in conversations about AI visibility: many tools and knowledge bases reuse Wikidata.

Be careful with bigger claims. Wikidata does not publish a list of who uses its data, and we found no official statement from OpenAI, Google or Microsoft that their assistants read a given Wikidata entry. Treat an entry as one more public record of your facts, not a shortcut to being recommended.

Read this first

Wikidata's notability rule

Wikidata does not accept an item about everything. Its notability page says an item is acceptable only if it meets at least one of three criteria:

1. It has a page on a Wikimedia site, such as a Wikipedia article about your company.
2. It is a clearly identifiable entity that can be described using serious and publicly available references.
3. It is needed to make statements on other items more useful (a "structural need").

The page says the rules are deliberately a little vague and that the final decision always rests with the community. Items that do not fit can be put up for deletion.

For a company, the second criterion is the one that matters, and the word to notice is serious. Wikidata's help page on items adds that items must not be created for promotional purposes. A community essay on self-promotion, which is advice from some editors rather than official policy, goes further: it strongly discourages creating an item about your own organisation and suggests at least three independent, reputable sources that cover the subject in depth. Your own website, a press release, an interview where you are quoted, or a passing mention do not count as independent coverage.

Rules for you as the owner

Editing about your own company

Wikimedia's rules apply to every edit, including edits by owners, staff and agencies.

• Paid edits must be disclosed. The Wikimedia Terms of Use say that if you are paid, or expect to be paid, for a contribution, you must disclose each employer, client, intended beneficiary and affiliation. You can do this on your user page, on the talk page of the item, or in the edit summary.
• Wikidata enforces it. Wikidata's policy on disclosure of paid editing confirms that editors are expected to follow these rules, and that editors who do not can be blocked.
• Self-promotion draws scrutiny. The self-promotion essay says an item written by its subject is not deleted for that reason alone, but it will be looked at more closely.

In practice: create an account in your own name, say on your user page who you are and which company you are connected to, and add only facts that an independent source backs up. If you think a fact on an existing item is wrong, raise it on the item's discussion page with your source rather than changing it back and forth.

Steps, only if you meet the rule

Check for an item, then add sourced facts

1. Search first

   Go to wikidata.org and type your company name in the Search Wikidata box. You do not need an account for this. Try your full legal name, your trading name and any old names.

   If your company has a Wikipedia article, you can also use Special:ItemByTitle: enter the language code of the Wikipedia (for example fr) and the exact article title. Wikidata's help on items recommends searching this way before creating anything, to avoid duplicates.

2. If an item exists, check it against your fact sheet

   Compare the name, description, country, website and founding date with your fact sheet. Where a fact is wrong or missing and you have an independent source, propose the change on the item's discussion page, and disclose your connection as described above.

3. If none exists, create the item

   Only if you meet the notability rule and have your sources ready. Log in, click Create a new Item in the left menu, enter a Label (your company's usual name) and a short Description that tells it apart from others with a similar name, for example "accounting firm in Luxembourg". The creation page itself asks that the description is not written as a sentence. Alternative names go under Also known as. Then click Create.

4. Add the basic facts as statements

   On the item page, click add at the bottom of the statements, type the property name, choose it from the list, enter the value and confirm with save or publish, depending on the version of the page. Start with these five:

   Property	ID	Value for your company
   instance of	P31	The type of thing, for example business or a more specific type
   country	P17	Luxembourg (Q32)
   official website	P856	Your website address, exactly as in your fact sheet
   inception	P571	The date the company was founded
   legal form	P1454	For example société anonyme or société à responsabilité limitée

   Property names and IDs as shown on wikidata.org on 24 October 2026.

5. Add a reference to every statement

   Wikidata's help on sources says most statements should be verifiable. For a web page, add reference URL (P854) with the page address, plus its publication date (P577), or retrieved (P813) with today's date if the page has none. If the source already has its own Wikidata item, use stated in (P248) instead.

   Illustration: one statement with its reference

   Item:       Fiduciaire Veldrin
   Statement:  inception (P571)  1987
   Reference:  reference URL (P854)  https://newspaper.example/veldrin-40-years
               retrieved (P813)      24 October 2026

   Illustration with a fictional business.

   Do not cite Wikipedia or another Wikimedia site: Wikidata's help on sources says these do not count, and asks you to find the original source instead.

6. Developer step: link the item from your structured data

   Once an item about you exists and has survived community review, your developer can add its address to sameAs in your Organization structured data from Guide 05. Schema.org's own definition of sameAs names a Wikidata entry as an example of a page that identifies you. Use the full address, such as https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q… with your item's number.

Check it worked

Confirm your entry is correct and sourced

Search for your company again in a private browser window. Open the item and read it as a stranger would.

Common mistakes

What usually goes wrong

• Creating an item with no independent sources. Your own website alone does not make you notable. The item is likely to be deleted.
• Creating a duplicate. Someone may already have made an item under your legal name or an old name. Search every version first.
• Writing it like an advert. Words such as "leading" or "best" in the description are promotion. A description only tells your company apart from others with the same name.
• Hiding who you are. An agency or employee who edits without disclosure breaks the Terms of Use and can be blocked.
• Expecting quick results. An entry is one public record among many. It does not guarantee that any AI assistant will mention you.