Seems as if there’s a bit of a groundswell building against internal links, which I got all upset about a few months ago. (internal linking is where you place a link on a word like, say, Google, but instead of actually linking to Google you link to another page on your own blog about Google.) Amit from Digital Inspiration points out that
Valleywag, the Silicon Valley gossip blog that everyone hates but still reads, always practiced excessive internal linking but good sense prevailed at Gawker and they have suddenly changed that habit.
Amit also points to Shane at the Daily Telegraph, who is complaining about the same practice. Etre.com points out how brazen TechCrunch are at doing it, but points out that Mashable and Engadget continue to do so.
I find it personally annoying because I tend to drag links into PersonalBrain or elsewhere and expect a link that says ‘Flock’ to go to Flock. But it’s also dishonest, like putting an EXIT sign over a door in a shop which instead goes into another part of the shop. It’s against the principles of the net, and, frankly, tells me that something is wrong in the state of Web 2.0 if this kind of thing is considered acceptable or even good practice.
What to do? Maybe a name-and-shame list until these recalcitrants start respecting the intelligence of their readers?
A Lesson from Valleywag – Good Linking Etiquettes | India Inc.
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Tags: techcrunch, valleywag, web2.0, sleaze, links
i complain about the fact you’ve got a big stinking CASTROL motor oil advertisement on your blog. you don’t see me writing anything up about it. you drank the cool aide i guess. now you’re telling people how to live.
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Misleading? I mouse-over any link before clicking it (and often just type in the link to the url myself), so I was never misled. Perhaps for the less astute. I am not a blogger, so I don’t care. But, it seems the ppl that have an issue are bloggers that are not ranked highly. The Gawker Netowrk has always done it, and Techcrunch only recently started (June). None of them do it across_the_board.
I’ll add this to another favorite gripe of casual bloggers: no_follow
Oh, and how about sleazy, PITA, captchas?
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Oh what rubbish! I used many internal links and within context in my old blog.
If you want to burn people at a stake, start with the greedsters who have words highlighted that pop up frikkin ADS!
Now THAT is a MISLEADING LINK, dammit!
This is a bad practice, but many have grown more aware of it in the last few months with recent blog discussions:
Internal Linking On Some Tech Blogs Is Out of Control
http://www.louisgray.com/live/2007/09/internal-linking-on-some-tech-blogs-is.html
Backlink Backlash Could Bring Forth Change
http://www.louisgray.com/live/2007/09/backlink-backlash-could-bring-forth.html
Ryan Block (Engadget)
http://www.ryanblock.com/2007/09/on-backlinking-or-internal-linking/
Robert Scoble:
http://scobleizer.com/2007/09/12/bloggers-double-linking/
Go after the fekkin ad links, then we’ll talk.
And to cite Scoble — for ANYTHING — is just, well, frikkin LAME.
Against the principles of the net? I must have missed the memo, but I’ve been netted for twenty years and I’ve never heard of that one before.
If I’m reading someone’s web page and see the word Google in blue with an underline, and discover that it is, tada, a hyperlink to http://www.google.com, I would be insulted and annoyed. I expect links to provide related, relevant, and NOT COMPLETELY [DELETED] OBVIOUS information.