Why Was My Company's Wikipedia Page Declined or Deleted? The 9 Real Reasons and What the Data Says

Owners use these words interchangeably. Wikipedia does not, and the fix depends on which one you got.

• Declined — your draft went through Articles for Creation (AfC) and a reviewer sent it back with reasons. A declined draft can be improved and resubmitted. AfC has no fixed waiting time, and disclosing a paid or conflicted relationship is required but does not guarantee acceptance.
• Rejected — the reviewer judged the topic unsuitable as it stands; resubmitting the same material is not expected to change the answer. Blog posts disagree about what a rejection permits, so read the notice and the AfC page itself rather than a vendor's summary.
• Deleted — a page or draft that existed was removed by an administrator through speedy deletion, proposed deletion or a community discussion.

In all three cases the first step is the same: read the exact notice or the deletion-log entry. It names the reason, and the reason decides whether you rewrite, wait for new coverage, or stop.

Speedy-deletion codes are the shorthand on most deleted company pages. In plain language:

• A7 — an organization with no indication of why it matters. A thin draft that lists what the company does but not why anyone independent wrote about it.
• G11 — exclusively promotional; it would need a fundamental rewrite to be neutral, not just a polish.
• G5 — created by a blocked or banned user, often found in sockpuppet cases. The page can be deleted regardless of its quality.
• G12 — copyright problem, typically text lifted from a company website or brochure.
• G13 — an abandoned draft: no human edit for six months.

Pages that do not qualify for speedy deletion go one of three ways: proposed deletion (an editor flags it; anyone can contest by removing the tag), an articles-for-deletion discussion (editors argue from policy, and a neutral closer decides), or, after a deletion, deletion review, which asks whether the process was followed correctly or whether significant new evidence exists. Deletion review is not a second vote on whether the outcome seemed fair, which is why it so rarely rescues a page that failed on notability. For the recovery path, see deleted page recovery.

These two cause most company declines, and neither can be fixed by writing better.

• 1. No significant, independent coverage. Wikipedia's notability rule for organizations says no company is inherently notable. It needs significant coverage in multiple reliable secondary sources that are independent of it. The question is about your company's footprint in the world, not about the article, which is why "lacks notability" is the most common reason on the audit below.
• 2. The coverage that exists is the trivial kind. The guideline lists what does not count: press releases, sponsored or company-written content, routine funding, hiring, acquisition, launch or earnings announcements, directory entries, "fastest growing" or "top 100" lists, sponsorships and local events. Trade press faces a presumption against it, local-only coverage is weak, and primary documents such as annual reports or filings can verify facts but cannot establish notability. A company with fifty links and zero qualifying sources is not close; it is at zero.

What the data adds. A Signpost recap (22 May 2026) of an industry audit of 1,009 AfC drafts from late 2025 reported 68% declined, only 6% of tech-company and startup submissions approved, and average review times of about 30.5 days for accepted and 31.7 days for declined drafts. The Signpost flags it as not peer reviewed, so treat it as directional; the full context is on Wikipedia statistics. Business subjects are a hard category, and this is the reason to measure eligibility before drafting anything, as in the requirements guide.

These can be fixed by rewriting — if the notability underneath holds.

• 3. Promotional tone. Wikipedia is not a place for advertising, marketing or PR; information about companies must be written in an objective, unbiased style. Every sentence can be true and the draft can still read like a brochure: superlatives, mission language, lists of services, quoted praise and awards without independent context. That is what G11 targets, and it needs a fundamental rewrite, not a lighter tone.
• 4. No indication of importance (A7). A draft that explains what the company does and when it was founded, but never shows why independent sources cared, reads as an advertisement in miniature. Add independently sourced facts, not adjectives.
• 5. Copied text (G12). Wording lifted from your own website, press kit or LinkedIn page can be flagged as a copyright problem even though you own it, unless the copyright holder has formally released it under Wikipedia's licence.
• 6. AI-written text. In the audit relayed by the Signpost, 16% of all submissions were flagged for AI concerns, and AI-written text appeared among the top reasons for decline. Reviewers also look for fabricated or unverifiable citations, which generic AI drafts tend to produce. The fix is human research and writing against sources that exist.

The last three are about how the page was handled, and they are where a failed first attempt turns into a harder second one.

• 7. A hidden conflict. A draft or page created by undisclosed paid or conflicted accounts is judged on trust as well as content. If the creating account is later blocked or banned, G5 lets administrators delete what it made regardless of quality. The accounts, the page history and the investigation threads are public.
• 8. An abandoned draft (G13). A draft nobody has edited for six months can be deleted. Owners lose drafts this way when the first decline arrives and the work stops.
• 9. Resubmitting without changing the evidence. Sending the same draft back on the same sources fixes the paperwork, not the decision. A published case study of one company's draft declined eight times shows what that loop looks like in practice. Reviewers read the history, so the new version should answer the decline reason, not merely be longer.

The scam that follows a decline. In Operation Orangemoody, discovered on 31 August 2015, volunteers found 381 sockpuppet accounts in a ring that extorted businesses whose drafts had been rejected at Articles for Creation. The pattern, documented and recurring in the community's records: a decline arrives, then an unsolicited offer to "fix" or "protect" the page. Wikipedia's COI guideline says offers to guarantee a page will be saved from deletion for money are always fraudulent, and its scam-warning page says unsolicited offers are scams. Disclosed professionals do not cold-contact you with guaranteed outcomes.

A quick triage for the notice or deletion log you actually received.

• Fixable by rewrite: G11 and "reads like an advertisement", thin A7 drafts where independent sources exist but were not used, G12 copied text, AI-flavoured prose, missing or poor citation format, an abandoned draft (G13) on a company that does qualify.
• Fixable only by new independent coverage: "lacks notability", "not enough reliable sources", coverage that is all press releases, funding news or rankings. A new draft built on the same evidence returns the same decision.
• Fixable only by a clean restart with disclosure: G5 and sockpuppet-related deletions, undisclosed paid creation. This is slower, not impossible, and it rests on trust that is rebuilt in public.
• Not a decision you can win by arguing: a deletion-review request that only restates the sources the community already weighed.

Be wary of anyone who promises restoration. Wikipedia is run by independent volunteers, so restoring a page is never in a vendor's hands, and this page promises no outcome either. What can be promised is a written diagnosis, which is where every fix above starts.

Resubmitting on instinct is the expensive way to learn. The cheaper sequence is:

• Read the reason in the decline notice or deletion log and match it to the nine above.
• Count qualifying sources: independent, reliable, secondary and significant in depth, each passing all four tests. Throw out press releases, rankings, sponsored posts and your own site.
• If the count is below a few real articles, stop drafting. Build coverage first, or choose an alternative such as a structured-data entity. An honest downgrade beats a doomed resubmission.
• If the count holds, rebuild the draft from the sources, with the paid or conflicted relationship disclosed, and submit it through Articles for Creation.

This is the work a disclosed, policy-literate professional should do before any money changes hands, and the reason a go/no-go precedes any draft. Request the notability audit for a written verdict on your sources, see deleted page recovery for pages that have already been removed, or contact the team at wikibusines.net. If you have the choice, do not be the one who writes the next version: see why the conflict-of-interest rules point you to a professional.