Why Do We Link in News Stories? A Discussion

What bothers me is when articles link words to a company site and you realize, ‘awww man that’s an ad!’  It’s worse than a pop-up ad because you’ve been tricked into serving it to yourself. What an affront.

 Doesn’t it depend on the topic being written about?  If its an analysis of the online dialog surrounding how the media handled a tech company hiring a PR firm to do a smear campaign against a rival then, sure, link away.  If, on the other hand, its Nick Kristof’s firsthand account of a visit to a refugee camp then links will neither add to nor diminish from what is being conveyed. 

 Doesn’t it depend on the topic being written about?  If its an analysis of the online dialog surrounding how the media handled a tech company hiring a PR firm to do a smear campaign against a rival then, sure, link away.  If, on the other hand, its Nick Kristof’s firsthand account of a visit to a refugee camp then links will neither add to nor diminish from what is being conveyed. 

 Would it be too cynical of me to suggest that some people link out in news stories because some SEO agency might have paid them to do so, #never

John

 My policy, which some of my editors don’t agree with, is to link only to primary source material. I often write about studies, reports, statistics and so on and think readers would like to know where they came from and whether my description of what they say is accurate. I think this is of value to readers and increases my credibility.

Absolutely. I think when Mathew, myself and others talk about the need for more linking, we’re referring to situations where links are gravely needed. The example you describe might not benefit from any links (though, it depends on how the narrative goes of course), but there are many more cases that we see on a daily basis where links are necessary, would serve the reader, contribute to transparency, etc.

[...] discussion about linking and journalism amongst a number of journalists in North America. Mathew Ingram of GigaOm and  Alex Byers, a web producer for Politico in Washington, both collected the [...]

[...] to Matthew Ingram of GigaOm for transparency and the work compiling a debate conducted via Twitter about news stories offering links to source material. That news stories should provide links is a given for many, like Matthew, but it’s not a [...]

[...] There’s some very interesting commentary on Searls’ post, with the Chicago Tribune’s Brian Boyer noting that his paper’s “workflows and CMSs are print-centric” — and others noting other CMS troubles with linking. That kicked off the latest round in this long-running discussion, a Twitter exchange featuring (among others) Mathew Ingram, C.W. Anderson, Jacob Harris and Patrick LaForge, the last two from the New York Times. The Twitter back-and-forth was captured by Ingram (and Politico’s Alex Byers) using Storify — see it here. [...]

[...] not caring.” This kicked off a sprawling debate on Twitter, aptly chronicled via Storify by Mathew Ingram and Alex Byers. Ingram also wrote a post responding to a few of the themes of resistance of links, [...]

plus, isn’t an article or text with no links is boring.  should’t there be a minimum of links?  surely there are things within the text that is worth linking?  however, i think some sites still think that they are the only ones worth reading, and that they are afraid of linking less they lose visitors?  true?  peace out.

 We want to be number one that why I think

Why do we link in news stories? A discussion

I offer to your attention a film about six priorities of the generalized instruments of management by countries and people of Earth.
Six Principles of Global Manipulation
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0fF3TQ0lJnU
Anti-Qur’an Strategy of the Bible Project Wheeler-Dealers
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_1wXgXwj3MI

In most countries press does not even link to normal sites. Basically everything outside their corporate cluster it’s not linked to. My Inchirieri company was quoted hundreds of time with no link.

Lovely discussion what I looking for. Hopefully news stories links are better than other links. Thanks! 

 Oh I see……..Why?

As an SEO professional I completely agree.
Between the case studies from SEO moz on the effect of retreating on search
results to the well-documented effects of Face book link sharing on search
results, it’s getting to the point where social media is more than just a fun
way to interact with you friends via the computer. They are extremely valuable
marketing tools and businesses should take them seriously and adopt them
voraciously!

Really great discussion and more will come….