Google Sidewiki: How Google Tried to Build a Universal Comment Layer for the Web — and Why It Failed
Back in March 2010, a new button called Sidewiki appeared under “Experimental features” in my Google Webmaster Tools dashboard (now Google Search Console). Curious about what Google was up to, I decided to test how it worked — and why the search giant wanted to overlay its own comment section on top of every website on the internet.
Archive screenshot (March 2010): the Sidewiki (“WikiComments”) tab inside Google Webmaster Tools.
How Google Sidewiki Worked
Google’s idea was bold: allow any internet user to leave public comments and annotations on any webpage on the web — even if the website itself had comments turned off or had no comment system at all.
Unlike regular blog comments, Google Sidewiki entries were stored directly on Google’s servers and did not depend on the site’s code. To read or post them, visitors needed to install Google Toolbar (for Internet Explorer or Firefox) or an extension for the then-young Google Chrome browser. Clicking the Sidewiki button opened a slide-out sidebar along the left edge of the browser window.
Its main features included:
- Universal annotations on any URL: anyone signed into a Google account could open the sidebar and leave feedback about the page they were viewing.
- Pinned site-owner entry: verified site owners in Google Webmaster Tools could post an official owner comment that stayed pinned at the very top of the Sidewiki feed for their pages.
- No moderation by the website owner: entries went live immediately without the site owner’s approval, ranked only by Google’s automated quality and user-reputation filters.
Official Google Sidewiki introduction video (2009–2010):
“P.S. It seems like an interesting concept, and I bet spammers and others will start exploiting it very soon…”
The Aftermath: Why That 2010 Prediction Came True
Looking back, that short postscript from 2010 (along with the readers’ comments below) turned out to be spot on.
As soon as website owners, bloggers, and e-commerce stores realized that anyone could attach public text right on top of their pages — and that the domain owner had no “Delete” or moderation button on their own property — a backlash followed. Competitors and spammers quickly used the sidebar to drop links, poach customers from product pages, and post unverified claims that site administrators couldn’t remove.
At the same time, the era of browser toolbars was fading fast as web discussions moved to social networks. By September 2011 — just a year and a half after this post was originally published — Google officially pulled the plug on Sidewiki, sending it to the famous Google Graveyard. Today, this 2010 screenshot remains a fun time capsule from the Web 2.0 era.