Rant: Bad Linkers

(I apologize in advance for anyone I’m citing below.  Your intentions
were good, but IMHO, your technique leaves soemthing to be desired.)

Almost as annoying as bad-question-askers-in-forums are the click-here
people.  That was bad enough on web pages, but it’s gotten worse with the
explosion of blogging.

First example comes to us from John
Cilli’s Commerce Connect
.  John found an article that he’d like to
share:

Before I “click here”, I’d like to know what the article is about. 
Maybe it’s something I already read this morning.  Maybe it’s something he
thinks is useful, but not necessarily something Id find so.  No
indication.  John’s blog is reputable, but whatif this is a random
blog–could “here” be a trojan waiting to infect my system?  And since my
Internet usage at work is monitored, I can’t just click willy-nilly. 
Chances are I’ll forget when I get home, and any benefit from the article is
lost.  The article title and maybe a snippet or short abstract would be
really great (see me pat myself on the back below for an example).

John
Papa
brings us our next example, but it’s more of a “Where’s Waldo:
Hyperlink Edition” style of linking.  Can you see the download link
below?  It’s that little tiny one labelled “Attachment(s)”, below the
Google ads and Published information.  This isn’t so much John’s fault as
it is the skin designer’s.  Unless John designed the skin.

So who does links well?  Mike
Gunderloy
does a good job, with a title and short description.  Scott Hanselman as well.  I think
I do article links prett well; see http://www.rjdudley.com/blog/First+Ultra+Mobile+PC+Comes+To+US.aspx for
an example.

I’m sure both everyone of you reading this article has seen
more than enough examples.  Share some below.  But don’t be a bad
linker; not in the comments, nor in your posts.

<update 2006-05-19>

Jesse
Ezell adds one to the list
.  Hey Jesse, what is ‘this’?

One thought on “Rant: Bad Linkers”

  1. RJ,

    You are 100% right. I need to correct some of my bad habits. Thanks for calling me out on that one. It got me back on track.

    John

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