External Links

A question that a website owner/operator probably asks is: "What are the external links to my website?". In addition the links that a website owner/operator provides to other websites is very important as it is in effect an endorsement of the site that is linked.

A review on how I handle these has been updated with respect to shimmed links. There is little point in providing links to external websites without getting the visitor to make an additional click letting them know that is of no benefit to me.

As I was saying on my SEO page, I no longer care about Page Ranking.

I have many links to WikiPedia and W3C Schools. The reason for this as I find that they are both good sources of information that is relevant to my pages. In all cases when I make a link to a website that I do not own or control I do so in a manner so as not to assign any endorsement of that website.

In addition to W3C and WikiPedia there are many other fine sources of information for the programmer including Google, MDN and Stackoverflow

How I now construct an External Link

The use of a rel="nofollow" and a 🔗 symbol (the code for which is: 🔗)

Top

In many cases there is little to be gained by having external links. On these pages I am in the process of commenting them out.

In cases where the external links refer to my research and I want to be able to find them myself I have shimmed them either to force an additional click or just disabling them.

A review of the Link Policy

On review of the websites that I reference on my pages I notice that there are very few links to other websites that discuss the topic that drew the visitor to tempusfugit in the first place. Seeing that the main reason that I placed the links was so that I could continue with my research on the subject without having to make an Internet search for myself.

These pages can still be accessed but the visitor has to read and click a new link on the pop-up dialog. For me this does not slow me down and allows me to look up where I found the information that helped me. The visitor that finds my pages is more likely to stay on the linked website and never to return.

Many of my external links are to the W3 Schools website where there is an abundance of code and examples. My development techinique often takes these examples and adapts them to my format.

Maybe my pages are just not that interesting?

The fact that those that find my pages just leave, or click on an external link, maybe due to that there is nothing of interest to keep them.

I have tried to add pages and links in the past to determine why a visitor found my pages. This has had only minor success and is akin to "Teaching a pig to sing"?

searchinfluence.com say:

Robert A. Heinlein’s statement about not trying to teach a pig to sing is an analogy for never attempting something which is impossible or futile. In other words, don’t waste your time and energy on something that has no chance of success. This same sentiment can be found in other popular sayings, such as “Don’t try to fit a square peg in a round hole,” or “Don’t try to push a rope.” All of these phrases suggest that some tasks are simply not achievable and attempting them is a waste of time and resources.

The notion of “teaching a pig to sing” carries a particularly strong meaning because pigs are known for their loud and distinct grunts, which are very different from human singing. Therefore, it is impossible to teach a pig to sing because pigs simply cannot produce the sounds required for singing. This makes the analogy even more powerful, as it emphasizes the point that some tasks are simply impossible and should not be attempted.

Robert A. Heinlein’s statement can be seen as a warning to individuals not to attempt the impossible or to waste their time and energy on tasks that are not achievable. By making this analogy, he is reminding people to recognize when they are taking on a task that is beyond their capabilities. This is an important lesson that can be applied to a variety of scenarios, from personal relationships to professional endeavors.

Missing a trick

The pages that I have got interest in were the very places where an external link was most problematic. Visitors finding the pages were most likely to be looking for a solution to a problem or performing their own research. Providing links in this case was a recipe for them to follow these and likely not to come back.

The "research" aspect was overlooked and the fact that tempusfugit.me.uk is a non-commercial website was not recognised by those that found it. In some ways the more "professional" I made it look the more that it was not understood that I was not just doing this for money. Some of the visits, particularly to obscure design issues and for historical information all I was doing was providing free advertising for sites that I was linking. Geneology websites are a case in point here as I was giving away links to websites I found for my own research which were charging for that same information.

Formatting

External links are more of a convenience for myself. If I have found a page that assisted me with my research I want to be able to return to it While I have no reason not to share these links with visitors they can always make the same search as I did.

For this reason I have made the links look like normal text, no text-decoration and cursor:text.

The external links are still accessible but the visitor (and me) will have to make an extra click. The hope is that when the visitor is presented with the shim dialog they are better informed and if they read this page they will see how to access the link.

Validation Link

A HTML validation link has been added to the template. When checking my page on validation I noticed that I had quite a few errors creeping in!