More thoughts on external links

In my start to make a fifth layout I am reviewing my external links phylosophy once again.

After spending all the time that I did in developing link-shims I have reverted to the notion that there is little point in have any links to other websites that allow the visitor to leave. The shim was possibly more of an annoyance that had the opposite effect to that I had indended.

Instead of telling the visitor that the external link had been disabled and making then press a button to continue, the visitor was more likely to leave the website completely. This would especially be the case if there were more than one external link shown on the page.

Method of removal

This is actually quite simple

A link to the external webpage is replaced by a text reference to it:

The webpage title - URL (https://........), an example can be ssen below in the References section.

The URL is padded with spaces so that it cannot be easily copied and pasted and/or just clicked on from an Apple device (Android may well be the same)

The URL with spaces will also wrap on a small screen otherwise it is likely to fail the "Mobile-Friendly" test. The URL can also be displayed in a different colour if there is other text with the reference.

The original external link is then commented out by highlighting the lines and using Crt-K. The URL that was in the shimmed link is still avialable by looking at the code.

New references when added to a page will have a URL that can be followed from the editor but will possibly have the spaces removed manually. A Wikpedia link will be self explanatory. Also sending a visitor to a Wikipedia page is a sure way of loosing them as they are more likely to follow a link from there.

The shimming code can also be removed from the page.