Überhyperlinking

I’ve written about hyperlinks before. I have argued that it is absolutely ludicrous that some websites want to prevent you from deep linking to content on their websites, or mandate special conditions for hyperlinking. I sent dozens of requests to such sites asking for permission to link to their sites. I was honored, but more than slightly amused, when I received a formal permission to link to the website of the government of Australia. Here it is again, a friggin government approved link!

Only one request was explicitly denied, the others never replied to my requests.

According to Tim Berners-Lee, on the web, to make reference without making a link is possible “but ineffective – like speaking but with a paper bag over your head.“

Linking is not only our fundamental right, it’s our duty. Not linking to relevant sources causes extreme frustration in most readers. I find it incredible that most online newspapers don’t link to external sites at all. Some, like engadget.com, even have a perverse habit of linking only to their own stories, whereas bloggers usually utilize a sane habit of linking.

I stumbled upon this article by John C. Dvorak. He argues (and quite rightly so) that overlinking is probably better than null-linking. He also discusses the concept of dimensional linking – the idea of different levels of links that can be turned on or off with the browser.

This would be a great idea for many sites, but no doubt difficult to implement without making it overly complex. Imagine a blog, where you could hide all unnecessary links with just one click, leaving only the really important links visible. Now wouldn’t that be awesome!