> to the point many communities set up their own wikis to avoid dealing with it.
Which is a good thing honestly. There's such a big difference in usability between the independent internet that exists out of genuine passion/interest and the internet that's run by advertising companies and people looking to make money off advertisements.
True. Wikia's existence meant things like the Nintendo Independent Wiki Alliance and Square Enix Independent Wiki Alliance could put out some actually good wikis about the games they cover. Stuff like Mario Wiki, Bulbapedia, the Super Smash Bros Wiki, etc are significantly better than their Wikia/Fandom counterparts, and have proved you can defeat the service in the Google rankings by providing a better service.
Just hope your owners don't decide to cash out and sell the site to Wikia/Fandom later on, otherwise the whole branching stuff will have to be done all over again.
Curse used to traffic the ads for this site, at least in 2016 when I worked for them. They may very well still be getting trafficked by Fandom who have since acquired Curse Media.
Which is a good thing honestly. There's such a big difference in usability between the independent internet that exists out of genuine passion/interest and the internet that's run by advertising companies and people looking to make money off advertisements.