Thoughts: On when not to link to other blogs in your posts
You read it on almost every prominent blog: “Link to others.” Many people preach it, as if not linking to others would result in damnation in the blog world. I like linking to other sites for only one reason: I want to link to other sites because they have some interesting information related to something I am writing.
There is one situation, however, when you should avoid linking to others. If you link to others with even the slightest hope that the person you linked to will link back to you, you have probably biased your article, consciously or unconsciously, to include a link so that you can hopefully get a link back. In my view, that can be a very bad thing unless you know for a fact that such is not the case.
Sometimes bloggers hide their interest in getting incoming links behind the concept of linking to useful posts
If you link to others with the assumption that you will get a lot of benefits in return, including the benefit of being linked back, you should sit down and figure out if you are actually looking forward to the sole benefit of being linked back to by someone else. Maybe you are only linking to get links back, and you are using a myriad of other reasons, like “I’m linking to a great article” or “My readers should find out other sites too“, simply to feel better that you are not linking just to get attention.
Example: many prominent bloggers tag or link to other prominent blogs only
You can see this a lot in online memes. Many prominent bloggers tag only other prominent bloggers for different memes. Such prominent bloggers will also link only to other prominent bloggers in their blog posts. These bloggers are only linking out in order to get more links pointing to their own site. That means these bloggers care more about the concept of incoming links than the concept of sending visitors to good sites, since their visitors trust them by clicking on links pointing to other sites.
Figure out whether you will link to others if you get nothing in return
The next time you want to link to a blog or a blog post, find out if you are writing a quality article or abusing the concept of link baits, by asking yourself this question:
“If that blog never links back to me, and the blogger never visits my site, would I still link to a blog post by that blogger?”
So please tell me, my dear reader, what are would be your reasons for linking to other blogs in your blog posts?
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( May 3rd, 2007 at 10:03 pm )
I link to other blogs or sites only because because I either mention the name of that blog owner in my post or that blog post is related to the content of my post. I don’t expect them to link back to my blog.
To be completely honest, I did have such hopes when I just started blogging, but I quickly came down to earth and became a realist
( May 4th, 2007 at 2:13 pm )
I spoke about this a while ago: I link when the themes are the same I speak about or it’s something I’ve found interesting.
It’s not a way of searching for backlinks, and I almost hate memes: I just want my readers to have the possibility to know other people and other opinions.
[OT]
If I can, I’d suggest you to change the color of text in input boxes: gray on light blue doesn’t contrast enough. And blue <em>s can be confused with links, maybe try a different color
( May 5th, 2007 at 2:42 am )
Vivien-inspirationbit, thanks for the comment!
Those are 2 of the fundamental reasons one should link to other posts. 
Also, I like your use of the word “realist” and its relation to hoping or not hoping for linkbacks.
Andrea Micheloni, thanks for the comment, and for stopping by! I really appreciate it.
Thanks for the link; that is indeed a good, related post. It is interesting that you hate memes; how about memes where a person does not ask for a link back? I try to do that, by tagging people and giving them the option to not participate and to not link back to my post at all.
Also, thank you so much for the text input box color suggestion! It does look a bit confusing. I will change it soon. If you had any suggestions for a color I should choose, please let me know.
Thanks again Andrea for visiting. I hope you will come by the site more.
( May 6th, 2007 at 10:07 am )
@Bes: thanks
I hate memes because I don’t like the idea of tagging people, and many of them are useless, with no reason to exist but to give links back.
For the input box, you could use a darker font color or a lighter background, or both of them
( May 6th, 2007 at 10:20 pm )
Thanks for coming back Andrea.
Thanks also for sharing the reason you do not like the idea of tagging others for memes. I agree with you regarding “links back”; many bloggers tag others simply to get a link back. That results in the meme becoming solely a link-bait instead. Some memes today are just that; like the “link train” memes, which are simply ways to link back to each other without any other substance.
I like your suggestion on the input box colors.
1st, I changed the font color in text boxes to be pure black. Does the font in those input boxes look a bit better and clearer now?
2nd, I changed the usual link hover color from variant of blue to a variant of orange. How does it look to you now? Better? You can test it by moving your mouse over a link.
Sorry for the questions Andrea, though I really appreciate your input on this!
( May 9th, 2007 at 4:11 am )
Yes, its seems a bit better (IMHO, by the way, the input color should match or be similar to the background)
The most issue in your CSS, however, is the use of blue
<em>s: I know they stand there to underline something, but I’d have chose another color instead of blue, because it’s usually assigned to links.I’d suggest you to find a solution you like about this, because some users might find the color scheme confusing (and I, at firs, clicked an EM thinking it was a link, by the way
)
( May 9th, 2007 at 1:06 pm )
Thanks Andrea. I will be working on this and making some changes as time passes through experimenting and observing different things.
Thanks again for your suggestions, I really appreciate your input to help make this site better.