Linking “Best Practices”

There were lots of new material to blog about that I and Dr. Meinardus were not able to completely cover in the last FNF seminar. One topic I’d like to share with you here is about the Best Practices in Linking.

• When mentioning a blogger in your post, link to his main domain.
• When referring to a blog entry, link directly to that entry (via permalink) and not to the main domain.
• If you mentioned a blogger several times in an entry, link to him on the first instance and you can leave the rest un-linked.
• Make your links distinguishable from your regular text. The standard underline is good but you can opt for other ways like colors, font, text decoration, etc. What good is a link fi your readers can’t identify them.
• For rare words, Wikipedia is your best friend. Dictionary.com will do as well.
• Link to the original source but don’t forget to add links to blogs you first read the news. Ex. : (via Yuga)
• Check and verify that the links are working.
• For multiple links to a single text, use an enclosure like this: (see here, here and here)
• Send a trackback if you are linking to a blog that allows it.
• Lastly, don’t force a link if there’s really nothing to link to.

A link is a vote of confidence and a sign of respect. Always give some link lovin’.