To Link or Not To Link? Is It Really Such a Big Question?

The never-ending love of the blogosphere to the issue of linking to other blogs and failing to link when you really-really should is just plain amazing to me - we seem to never get tired of the entire meme and there is always some blogger or reporter who forgets to link back to the source where a link is due - and it starts all over again. Or a blogger does not link back intentionally - and it gets even worse than when it is simply forgotten. Or he pretends the link is forgotten when it is omitted intentionally - and you can hardly imagine if there could be anything worse done in the blogosphere.

The recent example is of Duncan Reilly naming ZDNet morally bankrupt because of ZDNet Australia allegedly using his story on Inquisitr about Australian Prime Minister joining Twitter without linking to his story or any other source. In fact, I believe many bloggers working in the news business will agree that such things happen to us all the time and usually the best reaction is to forget as quickly as possible without even paying attention and wasting our time on such issues because you will hardly be able to rectify those who do this intentionally.

I myself try to stick to the approach where things that I can not change I try to live with peacefully instead of trying to fight mills like Don Quixote. This is exactly why I try to ignore splogs: I used to complain to their hosting companies demanding the scrapers to be shut down but I quickly realized there was no real sense in it as once one splog is closed there will be five more instead of this one stealing our content shamelessly. So I decided not to waste my time as some come, others go - and it all just happens naturally. It is absolutely similar to ignoring bad weather as your complaints will hardly make the weather switch to something better.

The same is true with linking to sources of information - both for blogs and traditional media outlets working online. While it is usually the best practice for bloggers to be polite and send Google juice and some traffic to other bloggers, traditional media are often told to be much less polite when it comes to giving credit where credit is due - hence all the hassle.

The most outrageous thing in the Duncan vs. ZDNet story was the fact that Duncan actually received an email from the editor who confirmed that the official editorial guidelines simply did not specify for linking to the original sources of news for a number of reasons that did not sound logical to me at all but definitely had an implication of never wanting to send traffic away from ZDNet own sites.

That got me thinking about proper behavior when it comes to linking out again and I have come to the conclusion that there are both blogs to be blamed and traditional media publications that should be admired for their generosity when it comes to linking to smaller bloggers when a link is deserved. I’ve been thinking about mentioning this for a while now as I do feel that I owe something of a big thank you to certain media outlets that are generous enough to link to blogs when we happen to break news no one else has access to.

I have one advantage as I am among the few bloggers in the English-speaking technology blogosphere capable of reading Russian - hence I often notice some news related to Russia well before anyone else does. This is why Profy was the first English-speaking news outlet to break the story of Russian antitrust authorities forbidding acquisition of contextual advertising network Begun by Google or the story of a Russian company contemplating suing Google for $3 billion about patent infringement.

Usually when I know that I have a totally unique story no one will be able to find anywhere but here on Profy, I choose to help the story get noticed by sending the link to a few of the bloggers who I know will appreciate the early tips and will join in the discussion. Of course I do expect a link back to my post and usually this is exactly what I get - and these bloggers and reporters will get some gratitude from me. Some websites choose not to link back and I will forget about them after giving them a moment of grudge.

My experience is that in every situation like this when a blogger breaks some important news, this blogger will invariably have some joys and some disappointments. And I have also noticed that it often happens that traditional media outlets will be even more willing to link back than certain blogs that will try to pretend they have sources everywhere and never read other blogs to get any news at all.

Of course this issue is important to bloggers as links from certain publications can bring traffic that you can hardly compare to anything your best day on Digg or Reddit could ever bring to your site. My experience like this was with Stephen J. Dubner from the Freakonomics blog of the New York Times linking to one of my posts where in fact the link was not even necessary by all standards - it looked more like a courtesy of him appreciating something I’ve done and trying to share the post he enjoyed with his readers. Believe me, this is the kind of traffic many bloggers would never even dream of having on their blogs. And again, the link was not even particularly related to the subject of the post - Stephen just wanted to point his readers to some information he himself enjoyed and thought it was worth adding.

This was a great experience for me as I suddenly realized there was nothing particularly impossible in getting links from the most prominent web publications when you do have something worth linking to. Besides, I started to think about traditional media versus new media links and realized that blogs were often equally unwilling to link to other blogs while some traditional publications were absolutely willing to send such pleasant surprises our way. And I realized that actually for traditional news outlets this issue should not even matter at all as their generous gifts of links will cost them nothing but will mean a lot to bloggers - who will probably in turn send some exclusive tips their way in the future or express gratitude in some other ways.

So I don’t really understand why some publications need to maintain such strict guidelines recommending not to link to news sources when it costs them nothing and could also improve their image instead of sending bloggers like Duncan their way with criticism. Do the guys over at ZDNet really believe that they will lose their audience to Duncan if they link to his blog? Really, that sounds ridiculous to me - it’s like expecting that people will stop visiting NYTimes because there are bloggers covering the same stories and sometimes breaking stories way before NYTimes does.

I don’t think this linking issue should really arise this frequently as nothing really changes every time we start the discussion anew. There are good people and there are bad people - you can never change that. Similarly there are good bloggers linking to each other and there are bad bloggers trying to keep all traffic to themselves. I may be too idealistic but I tend to believe that in the long run good bloggers will win and the link love they send to each other will reward them. Of course idealism is far from what is needed to run a news blog now that blogs have turned into new types of media outlets competing for attention but I think I will better stick to it and feel thankful every time I see an incoming link from a blog or a traditional website - big or small - and believe that the person who did not link back to my post has not done it on purpose and genuinely forgot to do that. Even if it does not change the blogosphere (it will not), I will at least feel better about people in general and won’t have to grudge every time a link is forgotten (really-really forgotten).

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