Check Wikidata's notability test, create the item, add the four core statements with references, then link the Q-ID from your Organization schema.
LLaunchScaler·Published ·8 min read
To create a Wikidata entry for your company, first confirm it meets Wikidata's notability policy, search to make sure no item exists, then choose "Create a new Item," enter a label and a short description, and add statements for instance of (P31), official website (P856), inception (P571) and country (P17), each backed by a reference. Wikidata gives the item a Q-ID, which you then link from your Organization schema's sameAs.
The step that decides whether the item survives is the first one. Below is the notability test in Wikidata's own words, the statements and references that make an item hold up, and what to do if you do not qualify yet, checked in September 2026.
Does your company qualify for a Wikidata item?
It qualifies if it meets at least one of Wikidata's three criteria: it has a valid sitelink to a Wikimedia page such as a Wikipedia article, it is "a clearly identifiable conceptual or material entity that can be described using serious and publicly available references," or it fulfils a structural need, such as being required by statements in other items.
Most startups without a Wikipedia article rely on the second criterion. The practical question is whether independent, publicly available sources describe your company: news coverage, trade publications, industry reports, official registries. Your own website and social profiles show the company exists, but they are not the serious third-party references the policy has in mind.
The policy is candid about its limits: "the guidelines below are intentionally left a bit vague." Disagreements go to a request for deletion, and "The final decision is always up to the community." Wikidata's autobiography guidance adds that "you should not create an item about yourself unless you are sure that it fulfils the notability criteria." If your only sources are your own pages, wait until independent coverage exists.
How is Wikidata's bar different from Wikipedia's?
Wikidata asks whether an entity can be described with serious public references; Wikipedia asks whether independent sources have covered it in depth. Wikidata's own guidance says Wikipedia's criteria are "generally much stricter" and asks people not to write Wikipedia articles about themselves. A company can qualify for Wikidata years before it qualifies for Wikipedia.
Wikipedia's guideline for companies says an organization is generally notable "if it has been the subject of significant coverage in reliable, independent secondary sources," and that "Trivial or incidental coverage" is not enough. It lists what does not count, including "press releases, press kits, or similar public relations materials" and material substantially based on them.
Questions, answered
What people ask about this
01
Can I create a Wikidata entry for my own company?
Yes, if the company meets Wikidata's notability policy. Wikidata allows people to edit items about themselves or organizations they represent, but asks that you not create one unless you are sure it meets the notability criteria, and paid editing must be declared.
One of three criteria, including description by serious, publicly available references
Significant coverage in reliable, independent secondary sources
Self-published sources
Acceptable for facts about the company when not self-serving
Do not establish notability
Writing about yourself
Allowed to edit your own item; create one only if sure it is notable
Asked not to create an article about yourself
What you get
A structured item with a Q-ID and statements
A prose article, which also becomes a sitelink on the Wikidata item
What do you need before you create the item?
You need a Wikidata account, so your edits carry a name you can attach a disclosure to, independent sources that describe the company, and your company's basic facts in a form you can cite: exact legal or trading name, founding date, country, headquarters city, founders and official website. If an agency or employee is editing for pay, prepare the disclosure Wikidata requires.
Wikidata's autobiography page states that anyone "editing Wikidata for reward (as part of your job, for money, or for some other consideration)" must declare it "on your user page, talk pages, or edit summaries," under the Wikimedia Foundation's terms of use. That applies to founders editing as part of their job too.
How do you create a Wikidata item step by step?
Search first, create second, then add statements one at a time with their references. Wikidata's help pages say to make sure the item does not already exist before you create one, and point to the "item by title" search for that check. The label is your company's name as people write it; the description is a short phrase that tells your company apart from others with the same name.
Search Wikidata for your company name, including common variants. If an item exists, edit it instead of creating a new one.
Choose "Create a new Item" in the left menu, which opens the new-item page.
Enter the label: the name exactly as your company uses it, for example Example.
Enter the description. Wikidata's guidance says descriptions are usually "between two and twelve words," start with a lowercase letter, and often start from the item's class, for example invoicing software company based in Lisbon. Avoid adjectives like "leading" or "innovative"; descriptions should be "free of controversy and bias."
Add aliases for other names people use, such as the product name if it differs from the company name.
Save. The item now has a Q-ID shown at the top of the page and in its URL.
Add the statements below, each with a reference, as separate edits.
Which statements should a company item have?
Start with four: instance of, official website, inception and country. Then add the ones you can reference: headquarters location, founder, industry, and identifiers that point to your official profiles. Each property has a fixed ID, and the value types are enforced, so a date goes in a date field and a place links to its own item.
Property
ID
Example value
Good reference
instance of
P31
business (Q4830453), or a more specific class such as software company (Q1058914)
Any source describing what the company does
official website
P856
https://www.example.com/
The website itself
inception
P571
2025-03-01
A company registry entry or a news article
country
P17
Portugal
A company registry entry
headquarters location
P159
Lisbon
Registry, About page or press coverage
founder
P112
The founder's own item, only if one exists
Press coverage naming the founder
industry
P452
The industry's item
An independent article
LinkedIn company or organization ID
P4264
The ID from your LinkedIn company URL
The profile itself
GitHub account
P2037
Your GitHub organization name
The profile itself
X (Twitter) username
P2002
Your handle, without the @
The profile itself
Crunchbase organization ID
P2088
The slug from your Crunchbase URL
The profile itself
The identifier properties are what make the item useful for disambiguation. They connect one Q-ID to the profiles that belong to you, which is the same job sameAs does in your markup.
How do you add references so the item is not removed?
Add a reference to every statement using "reference URL" (P854) with the source's address and "retrieved" (P813) with the date you checked it, or "stated in" (P248) when the source is a database. Wikidata's proposed verifiability guideline puts it bluntly: "Unsourced statements, and statements not supported by the source provided, will be removed."
Match each statement to the strongest source you have. A government company registry is the best source for inception and country. Independent news or trade coverage is the best source for what the company does, which also supports notability. Your own website is fine for the official website statement and, per Wikidata's guidance, acceptable for facts about the company "when they are used to support statements about their authors and the information is clearly not self-serving." Do not cite a Wikipedia article as a source; the guideline says that "in most cases" it is not appropriate.
How do you link your Q-ID to your website?
Add the item's URL to the sameAs array in the Organization JSON-LD on your home page, for example "https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q123456789". Together with the official website (P856) statement on the item, that makes a two-way link: your site points to the item and the item points to your site.
Google's Organization documentation describes sameAs as "the URL of a page on another website with additional information about your organization." The full block, with every property explained, is in Organization schema markup.
The reason this matters for AI answers is reach. In Profound's analysis of citations from August 2024 to June 2025, Wikipedia was ChatGPT's most cited source, at 7.8% of all citations. A referenced Wikidata item is a structured record of your company that other systems can match against, so a clean item is part of how your company becomes a recognisable entity, alongside the steps in entity SEO for a new brand.
What if your company does not qualify yet?
Build the sources first. Notability comes from independent coverage, so the work is getting described by others: reviews, comparison articles, trade press, podcast write-ups, conference talks. Those same third-party pages are what AI engines draw on when they describe you, as covered in brand mentions vs backlinks for AI visibility.
In the meantime, make your own entity data precise. Use one exact name and one description everywhere, publish Organization schema with sameAs links to the profiles you do have, and keep those profiles consistent. When coverage arrives, the item itself is a short job.
Get the markup side done for you
LaunchScaler's SEO / GEO / backlink boost covers the on-site half of this work: structured-data fixes, including your Organization schema and sameAs links, and answer-engine optimization, as two of its four workstreams. It is scoped to your site and quoted per project, from $299, with a record of everything shipped. Send an inquiry and you get a scope and a quote within one business day: Talk to us.
An item needs at least one of three things: a valid sitelink to a Wikimedia page such as a Wikipedia article, a clearly identifiable entity that can be described using serious and publicly available references, or a structural need, meaning other items require it.
03
What is a Wikidata Q-ID?
It is the unique identifier Wikidata gives every item, a Q followed by a number, and it appears in the item's URL, for example https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q42. You use that URL in your Organization schema's sameAs list.
04
Is it easier to get on Wikidata than Wikipedia?
Yes. Wikidata's own guidance says Wikipedia's notability criteria are generally much stricter. Wikipedia expects significant coverage in reliable, independent secondary sources, and it asks people not to write articles about themselves.
05
Why was my Wikidata item deleted?
Usually because another editor judged it not notable and opened a request for deletion, which the community decides. Separately, Wikidata's proposed verifiability guideline says unsourced statements will be removed, so reference every statement.
