Current thinking on when to provide links recommends adding as many outside links as are appropriate for the content you’re providing.
To Link or Not?
This is a significant reversal from the linking theories of the web’s early years, when many news sites adopted policies of rarely linking to external sites. They worried that a link would signal that they approved of the content they linked to. They feared that visitors who clicked out of their sites would be gone forever. They also thought that linking to outside sources and information made their site appear less knowledgeable or authoritative. But as more and more web users have come online, perceptions have changed. That being said, you do want be sure you are linking to sites that deliver accurate information, and you should be clear with your readers about where you are sending them when they click on a link.
Here are some of the benefits of linking to outside information:
- High volumes of outside links attract larger volumes of traffic. Think of such sites as Yahoo or Slashdot, which have a high incidence of repeat traffic.
- Users who follow links from your site can find their way back to your site and do come back for more. Think about your own interaction with people who only talk about themselves and never go to new places. They are less interesting than people who show an interest in the world around them. The same goes for your website.
- External information increases users’ trust and satisfaction. Even if users don’t click on the links you offer, they say the presence of links builds their trust. Listing and referring to external sources demonstrates that your site has a range of expertise. Think of it as a bibliography on a college essay. Moreover, as more people and organizations begin publishing on the web, it’s likely that your news site is not the first or only source of information. But you can add value with the cogency, timeliness and impartiality that you bring to that information.
- Links are another way to express editorial judgment. They help your site signal what’s important, much like the way you send signals with the stories you choose to write, the quotes you select and the photos you publish.
- Links validate your users’ savviness. News consumers don’t consider a movie listing to be “approval” of a movie or coverage of a trial to be “support” for an accused person. As long as you are clear about what links are going to external sites, readers are smart enough to tell the difference between a link and an endorsement.
Of course, linking for advertising purposes has different connotations, and we cover that in our Putting Ads on Your Site section.
Once you accept the idea that linking can make you appear smarter and more confident, you have the secondary issue of worrying that the sites you link to may in fact be less accurate than your site.
It’s important to exercise caution and due diligence in choosing who to link to and ascertaining that their information is valid. It’s also important to provide enough context so that readers have realistic expectations of what they’ll find when they click on the link. These things take time and effort, but it’s part of publishing on the web. Getting good and accurate quotes is also hard, but it’s rare that you’d run a story without a few of those.
New Window or Not?
So, you’re going to link. As you build your site, you need to think about how that link will happen. You can create links that open in one of two ways:
- Ordinary links open in the same browser window as the page they originated on — likely a page from your website. A reader must click the “Back” button to return to your website.
- New window links open an entirely new browser window on top of the original window. To return to the original page, in this case your website, a reader must first close the new window.
There are several methods of opening a new window, but the easiest is simple to set the “target” of a link at the same time that you set the href, like so: <a href=”http://www.google.com/” target=”_blank”>Google</a> The target can be set to any ordinary word, like “offsite” or “newwin” and then if you later have another link with the same target, it will reuse the opened window. The special target called “_blank” will never be reused, and will open a new window for every link that’s clicked.
Opening External Windows
Most web readers prefer ordinary links. They tend to be faster, more intuitive and more convenient for readers.
- They allow users to use the “Back” button to return quickly to the page they were just looking at – hopefully your website – and pick up where they let off. That’s how users commonly navigate. Once you pop up a new window, that “Back” button is broken.
- They allow users to finish surfing the web by clicking out of only one window. New windows require users to go back and close your site later, which annoys users at the end of their browsing session.
- They open faster on most computers than links in new windows. Moreover, a new browser window usually appears in a slightly different position, requiring a few seconds to adjust to it.
So, for users either returning from a quick offsite visit or exiting easily, opening a new window is an obstacle or an annoyance. This can cause your users to be a little slower, a little less appreciative of your site and a little less happy with you.
It’s worth noting that none of the 10 most popular websites cause links to open in new windows.
Deep Linking
See the Law and Ethics section for more information on Deep Linking.