Do You Link to External Sites?

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1. G. Dewald on August 5, 2008 8:30 am

   That last one, links get you noticed, cannot be overemphasized.

   I recently tweaked my ping service so that other blogs are notified when I link out to them. I get a very healthy dose of traffic back from those links. Also, since I tend to link to sites with readerships within my desired market, those visitors tend to be well qualified.

   Oh yeah, and my readership likes letting me do their web surfing for them and appreciate it when I link out. It’s a double-win.

2. Chris Latko on August 5, 2008 10:55 am

   Links built the Internet (web). One of the original visions of Tim Berners-Lee was to make a compendium of knowledge with cross linking to allow people to click on words or topics for more information. As the web became more commercialized, we saw the rise of information islands with no cross linking due to the hoarding eyeballs mentality of VCs and their funded startups. Not good.

   If you really want to provide value to your users, link out to sites you feel explain the topics better than you can.

3. Drew Meyers on August 5, 2008 10:58 am

   Chris-
   Well said — I certainly agree with you that people should link to a source that can explain something in more detail than they can.

4. Jeff in Hawaii on August 5, 2008 11:10 am

   I think it is healthy for your site to link out. It is actually natural to link to other sites. I also believe your users appreciate links from your site to other useful information that can help them. Users going to a real estate related site may be interested in things like: mortgages, area information, schools, rental market information, temporary housing while house hunting and many other services that go a long with buying or selling a home.

   If you share the love others will also do the same for you and actually drive more visitors to your site. Its all about more exposure, isn’t it?

5. Joseph Bridges on August 6, 2008 9:04 am

   The Internet was built on sharing information. Links help continue that and build information. People cannot be islands on the Internet and Chris makes a great point about the sharing and how the commercialization of the Internet took the linking concept away for a little bit but I think that linking is back in.

6. Valerie Suelzer on August 6, 2008 10:10 am

   I agree that from a Real Estate brokerage viewpoint, we should (and do) link out to useful information that is outside of our realm.

   However, do we agree that advertising other vendors on your site is another animal? We were recently approached by a data aggregator who would like us to post advertising linking out to vendors for services such as credit reports, security systems, paint, home-insurance, etc.. In that case, I think it is a bad idea.

7. Brian Chase, Realtor in Charlottesville Viginia on August 6, 2008 11:14 am

   I definitely agree that links can be beneficial and educational. I used the links in this post to learn more about the post you were referencing.

8. Ryan Ward on August 7, 2008 9:14 pm

   I think it’s as simple as – will a link out help readers of the post? If the answer is yes, insert the link.

   There is no reason to over analyze this. Sometimes people get “SEO Tunnelvision”. Think about the people you are writng for and the rest works itself out.