The Ashkelon123.com website was added to the Ashkelon Wikipedia page as an external link. Since Wikipedia pages can be edited by the general public, editors have to deal with individuals and companies who edit Wikipedia trying to add extraneous external links on pages in order to gain an advantage with their search engine optimization (SEO) efforts. As a result, external links are scrutinized carefully and chosen based on relevance to the topic.

Wikipedia guidelines state:

Some acceptable links include those that contain further research that is accurate and on-topic, information that could not be added to the article for reasons such as copyright or amount of detail, or other meaningful, relevant content that is not suitable for inclusion in an article for reasons unrelated to its accuracy.

Some external links are welcome (see § What can normally be linked), but it is not Wikipedia’s purpose to include a lengthy or comprehensive list of external links related to each topic. No page should be linked from a Wikipedia article unless its inclusion is justifiable according to this guideline and common sense. The burden of providing this justification is on the person who wants to include an external link.

While most Wikipedia pages can be edited by anyone, the Ashkelon page is a “protected” page, so that only “extended confirmed users” and “administrators” can edit it.
Wikipedia explains why the page is protected:

  • While most articles can be edited by anyone, extended confirmed protection is sometimes necessary to prevent disruptive editing on controversial pages.
  • The reason for protection can be found in the protection log. If there are no relevant entries in the protection log, the page may have been moved after being protected.

There are approximately 1,988 “Wikipedia extended-confirmed-protected pages” connected to the Israel / Palestinian dispute, and Ashkelon is one of them.

Despite the status, Ashkelon123.com was added as one of the four external links permitted on the Ashkelon page.

It joins:

  • Ashkelon City Council
  • National Geographic story on Ashkelon
  • The University of Chicago page on the Leon Levy Expedition of Ashkelon Excavations