Guide · Updated August 2026
How to create a Wikipedia page
To create a Wikipedia page: confirm the subject is notable, gather independent secondary sources, register and disclose any connection, draft in the Draft namespace, write in neutral prose with a citation on every claim, then submit through Articles for Creation for volunteer review. One step decides the outcome and it is the first one. Wikipedia is written by volunteers applying a notability standard, so a page survives only when independent people have already chosen to write about the subject at length. Everything else on this page is detail; notability is the gate.
First: is the subject actually notable?
Wikipedia’s general notability guideline asks for significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject. Every word in that sentence is load-bearing. “Significant” rules out passing mentions. “Independent” rules out anything you wrote, commissioned, or placed. And it is plural: several sources, not one good one.
Companies are held to a stricter bar under WP:NCORP, which explicitly discounts the coverage most businesses have the most of: funding rounds, launches, hires, and trade-press writeups sourced from a press release.
- ✓In-depth coverage in a major newspaper or magazine where a journalist chose to write about you
- ✓A book or scholarly work that discusses the subject in detail
- ✓Independent investigative journalism or documentary coverage
- ✓Multiple substantial, independent secondary sources (not one, several)
- ✓At least one source with regional, national, or international reach
- ✕Press releases, sponsored articles, or "churnalism" based on your own materials
- ✕Your own website, social media, LinkedIn, Crunchbase, or IMDb listing
- ✕Routine announcements: funding rounds, hires, product launches, acquisitions
- ✕Social-media follower counts or Google hit counts
- ✕Local-only coverage with no wider reach
- ✕Being related to, or working with, someone who is already notable
Sources are where nearly every rejected draft dies, because people count links instead of weighing them. One genuine feature outweighs twenty newswire reprints. Find yours:
| Source you have | Verdict | Why |
|---|---|---|
| National newspaper or magazine feature about you | Counts | A journalist independently chose the subject and wrote at length. This is the strongest signal there is. |
| Book or peer-reviewed work discussing the subject | Counts | Independent, editorially reviewed, and durable. Weighs heavily even when there is only one. |
| Investigative or documentary coverage | Counts | Independent editorial judgement, substantial depth. Counts even when unflattering. |
| Serious trade publication analysis (not a reprint) | Counts | Counts when the outlet did its own reporting rather than republishing your announcement. |
| Regional newspaper feature with real reporting | Partial | Helps, but WP:NCORP wants reach beyond the local. Rarely carries an article on its own. |
| Interview or Q&A with the subject | Partial | Largely the subject talking about itself, so it is a primary source. Supports facts, does not establish notability. |
| Podcast or conference appearance | Partial | Same problem as an interview: you supplied the content. Useful for citing detail, not for the notability test. |
| Award from a genuinely selective, independent body | Partial | Depends entirely on the award. Pay-to-enter and pay-to-win awards count for nothing. |
| Press release, newswire pickup, or syndicated reprint | No | You wrote it. Reviewers spot the shared wording across outlets instantly, and it actively signals promotion. |
| Sponsored post, advertorial, or paid placement | No | Purchased coverage is not independent by definition, however prestigious the masthead. |
| Your own site, blog, or "as featured in" page | No | Self-published. Zero weight on notability. |
| LinkedIn, Crunchbase, IMDb, wiki-style directories | No | User-submitted listings. Reviewers treat them as unreliable regardless of how complete the profile is. |
| Funding round, hire, launch, or acquisition announcement | No | WP:NCORP explicitly discounts routine business news, even in a major outlet. |
| Follower counts, traffic, or revenue figures | No | Scale is not notability. A large audience with no independent coverage still fails the test. |
Add the coverage you actually have, one item at a time. Each one is judged the way an Articles for Creation reviewer would judge it, and the verdict updates as you go.
Counts: A journalist independently chose the subject and wrote at length. This is the strongest signal there is.
Add your first source to see where you stand.
If the left column is thin, the honest answer is that the page is not the next step: the coverage is. Read what Wikipedia actually requires for notability before you invest weeks in a draft, or run a free notability pre-assessment and get a straight answer in a day.
The 7 steps, in order
Test notability before you write anything
Find every substantial piece of coverage about the subject written by someone with no connection to it. You are looking for several sources, not one. If that list is thin, stop here: no amount of writing fixes a notability problem, and this is where the overwhelming majority of attempts fail.
Sort your sources into "counts" and "does not count"
Independent journalism, books, and scholarly analysis count. Press releases, sponsored posts, your own site, LinkedIn, Crunchbase, and routine funding or hiring announcements do not, no matter how many of them you have. Reviewers check this first, so be harsher on yourself than they will be.
Create an account and disclose any connection
Register, then declare your relationship to the subject before you edit. If you are paid, WP:PAID requires you to name your employer and client. If it is about you or your own company, that is a conflict of interest under WP:COI. Disclosure is not optional and skipping it is what turns a decline into a scandal.
Draft in the Draft namespace, never live
Build the article at Draft:Subject Name rather than publishing straight into the encyclopedia. A conflicted or paid editor should not push a new article live directly, and a draft gives you room to fix problems before a reviewer sees them.
Write it like an encyclopedia, not a bio
Neutral point of view (WP:NPOV) means plain declarative prose, no superlatives, no mission statements, no "leading provider of". Every factual claim carries an inline citation to one of your independent sources. If a sentence only exists to make the subject look good, delete it.
Submit through Articles for Creation and wait
Submit the draft to AfC for volunteer review. The queue is measured in weeks to months and nobody can pay to jump it. Expect a decline on the first pass, read the reviewer's reason carefully, fix the underlying issue rather than rewording, and resubmit.
Expect it to be challenged later
Publication is not the finish line. Articles get nominated for deletion months or years later when someone re-examines the sourcing. A page built on genuinely independent coverage survives that review; a page built on press releases usually does not.
Primary sources: Wikipedia’s Articles for Creation, conflict-of-interest guidance, and the paid-contribution disclosure policy.
Can you create a Wikipedia page about yourself?
Technically yes, practically it is the worst way to go about it. Wikipedia discourages autobiographies outright: you have an unavoidable conflict of interest, and a draft written by its own subject attracts more scrutiny, not less. Declaring the conflict and requesting the article instead is both the compliant route and the one more likely to survive.
The harder truth underneath the question: wanting a page and qualifying for one are unrelated. Notability is not a reward for achievement, revenue, or follower count. It is a measure of whether independent writers have already covered you at length. If they have not yet, the page cannot be made to stick, and anyone who tells you otherwise is selling you something that will be deleted.
The order that actually works: earn the independent coverage first, then the page becomes straightforward. That is why our own digital PR and press placement work often has to come before any Wikipedia work at all. We would rather tell you that than take money for a draft that gets declined.
How to create a Wikipedia page for a company or business
Same seven steps, materially higher bar. Under WP:NCORP a company needs deep, independent coverage about the company itself, and reviewers are trained to discount exactly the material a marketing team produces most: the funding announcement, the product launch, the executive hire, the award you applied for, the trade-press article that reads like your press release because it was written from it.
Two more things trip up businesses specifically. A Wikipedia article is not a brand asset: once it exists, you do not control it, and it will document criticism and controversy alongside the good news if independent sources covered them. And it is not a marketing channel, so if the goal is really “show up credibly when someone searches our name”, a Google Knowledge Panel is usually the more realistic and more controllable target.
Who can create a Wikipedia page?
Anyone with an account can start a draft, which is precisely why the review layer exists. The meaningful distinction is not who is allowed to write but who is required to disclose: if you are paid to contribute, Wikipedia’s Terms of Use require you to name your employer and client on your account. If you have a personal or corporate connection, you declare the conflict and propose rather than publish.
Nobody, at any price, can approve an article, expedite the review queue, or guarantee a page stays up. The Wikimedia Foundation has said this plainly in its own warning about paid article services. Treat a guarantee as the clearest signal that you are talking to the wrong provider, and see what paying for a Wikipedia page can and cannot buy.
Why most drafts get declined
An independent 2025 analysis found Wikipedia declines roughly 68% of new article submissions, and the approval rate for business subjects is far lower. Going in expecting a decline, and knowing which of these you are at risk of, is the difference between a draft that eventually publishes and one that is abandoned after the first rejection.
How long it takes and what it costs
Wikipedia itself is free and always will be. What costs money is the work: honest assessment, source research, neutral drafting, and a disclosed submission. What costs time is the volunteer queue, which no one controls.
Realistically 20 to 40 hours across sourcing, drafting, and resubmissions, plus weeks to months of review. Right call if you already have the coverage and the patience to learn the rules properly.
Notability assessment first, and we tell you no if the answer is no. Then sourcing, neutral drafting, and disclosed AfC submission. Full money-back guarantee if we do not get the page published.
Full breakdown, including what the rest of the market charges: how much a Wikipedia page costs.
What it costs, and who carries the risk
Most of this market bills for consultancy: you pay for hours or a fixed engagement, and the fee stands whether or not an article ever goes live. We do the opposite. The notability assessment is free, we decline the work outright when a subject does not qualify, and the flat $4,000 is fully refundable: if we do not deliver the page published and live, you get 100% of your money back. We carry the outcome risk instead of you.
To be exact about what is and is not promised: we cannot guarantee Wikipedia's volunteers will approve any given article, because nobody can. What we guarantee is the money. Page published and live, or a full refund.