.. > Resume > Writing
Writing |
The Benefits of Straightforward Links Outside your site
October 26, 1999
By Timothy T.C. McGheeThis document was written with CWA in mind, but could apply to others.
Where we are now
Where we would be if we linked everything
- Generally accepted linking
- internal links
- governmment links
- friendly links
- Generally avoided linking
- unfriendly links (NOW, Planned Parenthood)
Proposed
- Link everything to their official site in the main window the first time it's mentioned on the page
- Exceptions would be pornography.
- This kind of linking shows open-mindedness and credibility--that we let people verify our claims.
- Linking shows respect for the user. It helps her interact with our content. It also makes our site into a jumping-off point on the Internet (a "portal" if you will).
- Let's try linking everything for a month and see what kind of response we get (measured by traffic and the survey).
Misconceptions about linking everything
Ways not to link
- "Linking implies endorsement"
- The way most people have seen links done, it probably does mean endorsement. Not everyone reads news.com who links to their competition. However, they know that such is what users want.
- Our relationship to an organization can be determined by the context of the link. If in a paragraph we mention Planned Parenthood, it is most assuredly not in a favorable light, so the link would obviously not be endorsement.
- It simply shows we know how to write for the Web.
- Too many links to the opposition is not a problem with the links; if you don't ever want to link to someone, you probably should never talk about that group.
- "We don't children coming to our site to end up on those sites"
- Most likely our traffic base is only children by a very small percentage
- Any young people that are coming to our site, must be interested in our content and can discern what we say from what Planned Parenthood says
- Any young people who cannot discern the difference has probably been to the other sites anyway; therefore, a different association to that site would be very good for them.
- "If we link to sites outside our own, people will leave and not come back"
- Most of the time people do not follow the links. But to have them says so much.
- The links change with the new content. People come back for the different links as a jumping-off point.
- It's not like TV or radio where you can't come back (because the program has changed to something else). People can come back.
- The most commonly used button on the browser is the "Back" button.
- Our page loads faster than most
- Opening up a new window
This says to people that we do not enough confidence in our own content to bring you back, so we'll force you to stay at our site longer by making it stay on your screen.- Tracking how many people exit
This hinders people looking at where the link goes. People like links not just to be able to get to a site, but to know where a site is and/or for people to know we believe in our stuff enough to let them verify it for themselves.
A compromise
If you're still uncomfortable with simply linking directly to outside sites, I propose the following. When we link to other sites in the main window, have a popup window accompanying that from our site containing:
- "Thank you for visiting cwfa.org; you are now leaving"
- "We do not endorse this site"
- Our logo, that people can drag to their desktop for a shortcut to our site
- Button - Return to cwfa.org where you left off
- Button - close the window