Broadcasting Brain - Latest Comments in Self-linking could make you go blind

Re: Self-linking could make you go blind

Pete White — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 12:13:27 -0000

I'm only posting this comment to get a self link.

Re: Self-linking could make you go blind

Rocky — Sun, 14 Sep 2008 06:08:35 -0000

Hi, I write a blog www.informationandideas.blo... .

I came across your website through michaelmartine.com and read this article on self linking. I am searching for new ideas and information material and your article on self linking is new for me. I enjoyed reading it.

Re: Self-linking could make you go blind

Mark Dykeman — Sat, 13 Sep 2008 21:58:11 -0000

Yeah, the consensus seems to be that it's an acceptable practice, so why not?

Re: Self-linking could make you go blind

cathlawson — Sat, 13 Sep 2008 07:52:13 -0000

Hi Mark - I only started to do self linking recently - I also read that problogger article. I'm finding I'm getting more page views since I started doing it.

Re: Self-linking could make you go blind

SEO Training — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 21:43:51 -0000

Wikipedia self-links all the time. I can't see the problem if the link is to relevant content that adds value to the post

Re: Self-linking could make you go blind

Murty BVNS — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 11:26:15 -0000

Whether you intend to cheat or not to cheat ( If self linking is thought as cheating) the content linked shall be relevant. Most of us agree with it. Here everybody seems to miss one point. When it comes to books we happily agree when the author quotes from his previous works or from the same book and technically say them annotations. Then why suddenly self linking has become unethical overnight ? It is the author or commenter better decide if he is going to bore his readers.

Re: Self-linking could make you go blind

Mark Dykeman — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 05:46:17 -0000

Sounds like a good way to do it.

Re: Self-linking could make you go blind

James Chartrand -Men with Pens — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 22:11:10 -0000

I see no issues with self-linking. We do it, but we don't do it for every post and we don't go nuts with it when we do. We link to older content that is relevant and that helps support the post in question or that gives more in-depth information. It's important to share older content that has simply fallen into the archives and bring it back out - otherwise, what good is it if it's been buried forever?

Do we do it for SEO purposes? Hell no. We do it because we're proud of what we wrote in the past and want it to live as long as it can.

Re: Self-linking could make you go blind

Mark Dykeman — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 18:24:17 -0000

Like a number of competitive tactics, creating these black holes can be very pragmatic, but it tends to cost you some friends and allies. But, after awhile, the latter may seem less important once you establish your fortress on the Web. Hope I don't get to that point - it's a personal preference.

Re: Self-linking could make you go blind

Mark Dykeman — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 18:22:41 -0000

You make an excellent point at the end: content tends to get buried or "lost" over time on blogs unless the blog owner works at making it findable.

It certainly makes sense to me to link to relevant content. However, it also makes sense to me to link to the outside world on occasion to recognized pillar posts or other authoritative pieces of information. That's only fair and you're doing your reader a service by linking out to the best stuff. And when your stuff is the best stuff, then it's just sweet.

Re: Self-linking could make you go blind

Mark Dykeman — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 18:20:28 -0000

As long as you play by the rules? I suppose so.

Re: Self-linking could make you go blind

Michael Martine — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 18:03:11 -0000

Linking to yourself is awesome, and if you don't do it you're not doing yourself any favors. There's no point in doing it where it's not relevant, because that helps nothing and no one. So that means it's practically never wrong or unethical.

What Techcrunch is doing is also what the New York Times and other large sites are doing: creating an SEO "black hole" by sucking in PageRank and not letting any escape. It's annoying, but not unethical in the slightest.

Re: Self-linking could make you go blind

Sonia Simone — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 17:52:28 -0000

I don't see that as "cheating" any more than any SEO technique is. I see Google like the IRS. Don't cheat, but go ahead and optimize your position.

Re: Self-linking could make you go blind

Sonia Simone — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 17:50:55 -0000

I think self-linking is perfectly legit--obviously it has to contribute to the conversation and be relevant, and automating it is just spammy and bizarre. If you create good stuff, there's no shame in pointing people to it. (Even if it's for . . . (horrors) a marketing purpose.) If it's not worth promoting, why publish it in the first place?

Then again, my definition of "marketing" is just "communication between a business [or nonprofit or project or whatever] and its customers," so a link that continues a conversation seems very natural to me.

The one place I rarely include a self link is in comments on other folks' blogs. Seems a bit pushy. But I'd do it if I'd written a post that was highly relevant to the conversation.

Self-linking from within your own blog just makes sense--if you put some real time and thought into your content (esp. what you consider to be your cornerstone content), you want to be sure new folks have a way to find it again. We do it a fair bit at Copyblogger (I probably do it more than the other CB writers, now that I think of it), because there's so much content there that a new reader would probably never otherwise see.

So I guess that makes me an unabashed self-linker. :)

Re: Self-linking could make you go blind

Mark Dykeman — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 15:40:11 -0000

A criticism of big blogs like Techcrunch, as an example, that they have linked to their own internal database of company data instead of directly to company websites. I don't know if this practice continues or not.

Question, though: if you are only self-linking to increase search engine rankings, are you cheating?

Re: Self-linking could make you go blind

incrediblehelp — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 14:54:56 -0000

Self linking sounds like nothing more than smartly linking to your own content throughout your website/blog. If it is then yes this will greatly help you in ranking those pages your linking to.

Re: Self-linking could make you go blind

Mark Dykeman — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 12:36:56 -0000

I agree with your point about exclusively self-linking. Credit needs to flow outward when warranted.

Re: Self-linking could make you go blind

Murty BVNS — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 12:10:50 -0000

Be wise and keep balance. Self linking is not unethical but you cannot afford the sneering looks of regular readers if they find you are only linking to your blog all the time. As far as I am concerned those self linking blogs saves me lot of clicks and provides me summary before I go to the main blog to which they are linked.

Re: Self-linking could make you go blind

Mark Dykeman — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 11:09:19 -0000

Ultimately it's the blogger's choice. I'm just saying that people look at the practice of self-linking in different ways.

Re: Self-linking could make you go blind

Tim — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 08:41:45 -0000

If it's your blog, you can do whatever the heck you like. People will vote with their feet (or eyeballs). If you post/comment on someone else's blog be courteous and abide any policy/convention they have. Simple.

Re: Self-linking could make you go blind

Stephan Miller — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 07:25:49 -0000

I think it is good and see now problem with it. There are plugins for Wordpress to do it for you, like alinks. Yes, it can help directing link juice around your sites, but if done correctly, it can help your readers by giving them more content that adds to the current post, which even helps more by keeping your readers reading what you've written on your site rather than them leaving when they are done reading one post.