I’ve written about several exceptional portal knols, such as International Space Portal, Canoeing and Kayaking Resources, and Knolympics.

Portal knols are basically knols that gather similar topic knols or knols meeting a certain criteria, usually through open collaboration – knol writers can join the portal and submit or write knols with styles and rules defined by the portal knol owners.

I view the open collaboration model as a trend setter for knols in Google Knol, and probably for all collaborated content creation in other sites, including Wikipedia.

Portal knols not only help knol readers that are interested in a certain topic to read related knols, but also help knol writers to give their knols more exposure through the portal.

What’s more, the portal knols will likely to rank high in Google Search Engine Result Pages (SERPs), as I believe many people and the search engine would view the portal knols more important than the regular knols. This, in a domino effect, will affect the exposure of knols that are listed in the portal.

Another substantial benefit is that open collaborated knols are reviewed and edited to meet a certain quality measurement, therefore increasing the quality of the portal knols, as well as the knols listed the portal – all in all, this will eventually improve the quality of Google Knol itself.

I think the whole thing is a win-win situation for portal knol owners, as well as knol writers.

So, knol writers – join a portal knol open collaboration and make your knol better.

Image by Alicia Yeah.