The Power of Links

February 29, 2008 · Comments

networks Kevin Burton’s post about how Google implemented the “nofollow” on all posted links as a baseline behavior on their new Sites implementation. (Briefly, this means, when Google’s or anyone else’s spiders go out and see what’s on a website, they don’t follow links off to other sites to see what those sites are, and index them as well). Now, I’m not a search guy, and so I’m not sure what Google’s reasons are for this. But here’s what this has me thinking about.

Links Signify Intention

This relates to what Steve Gillmor talks about with regards to gestures and attention and the like. If I put a link in a blog post, it suggests that I find value in what lies at the other end of the link. It means that I think YOU should click the link and see what’s going on.

So think about that for a moment. Think about YOUR behavior with links. When you write about Britt Raybould’s Bold Words blog, but you DON’T put links, you’re signifying that you’re not interested in people following the link to discover her work ( link to Britt’s great blog, btw). When you talk about LinkedIN, but you link it back to your own blog post instead of to LinkedIN, you’re signifying that you want to keep traffic on your site. SOMETIMES, this makes sense. If I said, “here’s my other article about LinkedIN,” then that makes sense. But if EVERY link keeps the audience on your site, you’re telling me that you don’t want me wandering around the web sharing attention.

Links Build Networks of Thought

Years ago, when I got the first ever Mac, it came with HyperCard. It was SO amazing to me. I could link up words inside of text, and give you all kinds of nuance and reference and sidebar conversations, all the while keeping the original document in-line. Links are part of that same magic, only better. Because HyperCard, at least when I was starting out with it, was relegated to referencing my own computer and documents, whereas links let me point all over the web.

To that end, you can build amazing and interesting networks of thought. You can build posts that give people an understanding about something by synthesizing data FOR them. Sometimes, you’re not the authority, but you are always in a position to thread up some articles, videos, and other resources to build out something of use to you. Being helpful means finding the right resources for the point you’re hoping to make.

Links Give Credit

If you click the photo included in this blog post, it takes you back to the artist who created it. Though it’s not a “perfect” way to give credit ( Steve Garfield schools me on this all the time), it’s better than just using their picture in my blog post, and better than just writing that “Jared” did this work.

In this world of free, one of the ONLY currencies we still seek and demand are links. If you note, my work is all available to you for free, to repurpose in lots of ways. The only thing you can’t legally do with my work is directly make money from it. (Mind you, if my ideas help you make money because you EXECUTE on them yourselves, you get to keep that with my blessings). But you could repost every single blog post I put up here on your blog, on your dog’s blog, wherever you want, provided you give a link back to me here at [chrisbrogan.com]. That’s not asking a lot in return for all that I put into my work. Right?

So, links are a very important piece of Internet currency. They are the money of attention in that way.

Links ARE the Network

Your phone has plenty of buttons on it, but until you push them in the right order, it’s a lot of capacity and not enough intent. Building web pages like blogs and wikis and the like are YOUR chance to build a network of your own intentions. We do this all the time. FriendFeed is a tool to show you links to all my web presence. So is Lijit. Twitter, blogs, everywhere that we can input html, are ways to thread the needle.

When you add links to a page, you tell a story. You build networks of value. For example, if you build a blog post called “The top 20 Torrent Sites,” you’ve just given someone a resource to improve their web experience.

Go forth. Create networks. Learn how to make nice, beautiful, useful links, give people credit and signal your intentions, and thread a beautiful net for people who can use your help.

The return value is how this all ends up working for us. Doc Searls might call this a way to make because of value from what we’re doing. Do you agree?

The Social Media 100 is a project by Chris Brogan dedicated to writing 100 useful blog posts in a row about the tools, techniques, and strategies behind using social media for your business, your organization, or your own personal interests. Swing by [chrisbrogan.com] for more posts in the series, and if you have topic ideas, feel free to share them, as this is a group project, and your opinion matters.

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  • I'm pretty sure Google is doing this as a preventive measure against the hordes of spammers that are going to try and use the service to artificially boost search rankings for their lame made-for-adsense and affiliate sales sites.
  • Agreed with one clarification needed, I think. I have seen some blog posts so dense with links that they can become hard to read. For instance, in this post you mention Twitter and don't link to it -- and I agree with that choice. Links should be saved for when you are adding value. If I refer to a series of companies in a post but am not focusing on them, I often will not link because it clutters the post and distracts from my message. But I if I were focused on Twitter or LinkedIn or those sites added real value to my discussion, I would link. Make sense?
  • I like your take on it, Chris.

    It's interesting to think that when you link, you're not just building a network of intention, you're also building a network of who you are--your personality on the web. It's like a networked version of integrity, or a good name; you can't fake it, the only way to get it is the slow way and it's worth gold.

    I really like A List Apart's styleguide on linking. It's thoughtful and has become my personal guideline for linking.
  • @Chip - exactly my point.

    @Gordon - forgot about that guide. Brilliant! Thank you!

    @Michael - well, true. I agree with THAT part, but that's what sparked my post, not really my intent to call them out. : ) Thanks for reminding me that I didn't close THAT loop.
  • Chris, I notice that each commenter on your blog gets a link that is no followed. Can I give you any grief for that in the context of this discussion?
  • The problem is spam is ruining the trust in links for everyone. What google needs to do is some sort of "trust" system. I have no idea of the feasibility of this, just thinking out loud.

    -Jeff
  • NoFollow is a classic case of punishing the innocent to try to stop the guilty. Google originally suggested its use to combat spam.

    Three years later it should be obvious that the nofollow anti-spam initiative has failed miserably. Just look at the Akismet figures with 90+% of the comments coming through as spam today.

    Spam is still on the rise in spite of nofollow. There has got to be another way to deal with the problem, preferably one that actually deters spam instead of just filtering it or "nullifying" the link juice for it.
  • Using links wisely is a huge deal. We talked a lot about this back in September, and got good conversations with Engadget, Mashable and others. Those who over-abuse internal links don't add a ton of value to the blogosphere as a whole.

    Internal Linking On Some Tech Blogs Is Out of Control
    http://www.louisgray.com/live/2007/09/internal-...
  • Outbound links from trusted content providers are worth their weight in gold.

    I judge links by trying to quickly see what the intent is.

    For instance, Chris, you don't have Adsense running on your blog, to me that gives you more credibility.

    I've seen many blogs that have links auto-placed by services such as Kontera's ContentLink. To me this just erodes the quality of the links. I'm 80 percent less likely to click on any link in any post if I see the person is running something like ContentLink.

    Linking is critical to the "wormhole" network. I read your blog, you link to someone, I go there, see that person has few people I've never heard of on their blog roll and off it goes.

    BTW, love FriendFeed.
  • Another thing to consider is what the links say about you beyond your personal opinion of the individual you're linking to. Links are a great way of giving people insight into where you're coming from and where you're going. The broader the link offering in someone's writing, the more intrigued I am by what they have to say and the more I think they have to offer. I may not agree with a particular point someone is making, but if they've provided the link to what sparked the thought, I can gain a greater understanding. By exploring these link networks, I think we're increasing our opportunity to be exposed to new ideas that might not otherwise cross our paths.
  • Hey Chris,

    Thanks for linking to that guy's photo. Flickr does not make it easy for you to do it in the manner specified by his CC license, BY.

    What Flickr needs to do is to include HTML code for photos other than your own, so that it's easier to link to.

    Plus, they also need to include in that code, links back to the creator AND CC License information.

    It would be SO easy for them to do this. I've discussed this with the Creative Commons people, and we agree.

    Now only to get Flickr to add this feature.
  • Until Flickr gets its act together and makes it dead simple to give proper credit, might I suggest the following idjit hack:

    1. Create a piece of boilerplate in an autotype program with everything but the actual link to the photo itself. TextExpander (from whom I receive no renumeration!) is esp. great b/c you can set it to move the cursor to where you want to start typing.

    2. Write your entire post, upload your photo from Flickr and link it.

    4. While you still have the URL in your computer's memory, scroll down to the bitter end of your post and type your shortcut, then paste that URL in the appropriate spot (like I said, TextExpander is the bomb for this.)

    This allows you to build in as much excellent info and linkage as you like with a minimum of time & keystrokes.

    For example, when I type in my shortcut--"ffl"--this pops up...

    Image by via Flickr, used under a Creative Commons license.

    ...with the cursor automagically in the space b/w "by" and "via." (Hopefully, your blog doesn't convert the html, but if it did, you can just select the link to see how many characters I stuffed into that shortcut.)

    I also like to go back to Flickr and leave a brief thx. note as a comment, along with a URL, both as a backup way of making sure they see their photo in use and a way to let other users know how much this photo is beloved!

    Anyway, this is a long-ass comment, but I'm telling you: setting up this system has saved me insane amounts of time and made me feel better about sharing linkage.
  • Bah!

    Okay, now I feel like (more of) an ass. I uploaded a screenshot of the WP editor so people can see what the hell I'm talking about.

    And remember: it just took three characters (and some setup time) to get there!
  • hanks for reminding me that I didn’t close THAT loop.


    I don't know if I'm the Christ, or the Anti-Christ. I'm just here to help.
  • And perform cut-and-paste errors, apparently. :)
  • Photo Dropper offers a solution that is the real bomb if you are in the Flikr photo, CC and WordPress soup!

    http://www.photodropper.com/wordpress-plugin/

    Love it.
  • I return to read this beautiful article and in the same time to link it in my blog, so many other people can see it.
    Thank.

    Rino.
  • I'd like to second Jim Spencer's recommendation of Photo Dropper for those on WordPress.

    For those not on WordPress, but using Firefox and GreaseMonkey, check out GetFWA (get Flickr with attribution) - which you can use with any blog platform.
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