Self-linking could make you go blind
Although there’s no scientific evidence to correlate self-linking to self-pleasuring, you might be forgiven for making a connection.
Self-linking is seen by some people is being a selfish, taboo way of getting your blog noticed or keeping readers from wandering away from your blog.
Or is self-linking actually a smart thing to do and should it be seen as a valid blogging strategy?
What is self-linking?
Self-linking, as the term implies, is when you create a hyperlink to some of your own content. You do this when you want people to go read your content. You’ll place the link in a location where you think readers might want to click on it.
Ideally, the self-link should be relevant to the topic at hand. For example, if someone is looking for information about massage oil and you’re an accomplished masseuse, it could be very helpful to link to your blog post about massage oils.
Linking to your “make money online” blog in the same situation is not so helpful. Making it look like you’re linking to a massage oil post when you’re actually linking to an unrelated ad or website is downright deceptive.
Variations of self-linking
In my opinion, there are different kinds of self-linking:
- Self-linking when you are publishing on a different blog or website (as in a byline on a post)
- Self-linking when commenting on someone else’s blog
- Self-linking to your blog’s content within your blog
Some people do not approve of self-linking. Some blogs have been criticized for linking to their own internal content on companies or organizations instead of directly linking to the site in question (see this O’Reilly Radar post on self-linking for a description). Some would say that self-linking to an internal database, instead of linking directly to the site being talked about, would deprive a website from both direct referral traffic or increased traffic from Google searches. EDIT: Louis Gray posted on this topic very recently as well.
Links have historically been regarded as a form of acknowledgment, recognition of achievement, and even celebration. Some bloggers compare links to a kind of currency or compensation. Other people don’t care.
Motivations for self-linking
As I see it, there are four main reasons for linking to your own material, using any of the above techniques:
- To point someone towards helpful information or material
- To demonstrate authority by showing that you’ve written significant, interesting, or cool content on a subject
- To market yourself, regardless of whether or not you’re trying to establish authority
- To boost your post’s results within Google searches or other search engines results (I first heard about this technique when reading a Problogger.net guest post about improving blog traffic)
This first two reasons are generally acceptable to most bloggers as long as everyone involved agrees with the practice. The third reason may be seen as being exploitive and individual bloggers may frown on the practice, particularly if it’s done with automated software for the sole purpose of improving search engine results. The fourth reason is permitted, although some people might question the need or justification of creating internal link clusters.
On the other hand, with regards to the fourth reason, there’s the famous cliche about building a better mousetrap… it’s worthless if no one can find it.
My limited research to date seems to indicate that most people frown upon reason 3, but they are OK with the other ideas. That’s the way I feel about it, too. Most of us who aren’t among the highly trafficked bloggers like to have opportunities for people to find out about us, so we’re sympathetic to other people who feel the same way.
What do you think?
Is self-linking good? Bad? Or does it depend on the situation? Is there a danger of going blind if you self-link too much, just like certain solitary activities are supposed to, um, cause health problems?
Why not share your thoughts? Leave a comment and let’s discuss!
Stephan Miller:
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.
10 September 2008, 6:25 amTim:
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.
10 September 2008, 7:41 amMark Dykeman:
Ultimately it's the blogger's choice. I'm just saying that people look at the practice of self-linking in different ways.
10 September 2008, 10:09 amMurty BVNS:
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.
10 September 2008, 11:10 amMark Dykeman:
I agree with your point about exclusively self-linking. Credit needs to flow outward when warranted.
10 September 2008, 11:36 amincrediblehelp:
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.
10 September 2008, 1:54 pmMark Dykeman:
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?
10 September 2008, 2:40 pmSonia Simone:
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.
10 September 2008, 4:50 pmSonia Simone:
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.
10 September 2008, 4:52 pmMichael Martine:
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.
10 September 2008, 5:03 pmMark Dykeman:
As long as you play by the rules? I suppose so.
10 September 2008, 5:20 pmMark Dykeman:
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.
10 September 2008, 5:22 pmMark Dykeman:
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.
10 September 2008, 5:24 pmJames Chartrand -Men with Pens:
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.
10 September 2008, 9:11 pmMark Dykeman:
Sounds like a good way to do it.
11 September 2008, 4:46 amMurty BVNS:
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.
11 September 2008, 10:26 amSEO Training:
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
11 September 2008, 8:43 pmCath Lawson:
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.
13 September 2008, 6:52 amMark Dykeman:
Yeah, the consensus seems to be that it's an acceptable practice, so why not?
13 September 2008, 8:58 pmRocky:
Hi, I write a blog http://www.informationandideas.blogspot.com .
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.
14 September 2008, 5:08 amPete White:
I'm only posting this comment to get a self link.
16 September 2008, 11:13 amWhy automating related post links on other sites can be high risk » Make You Go Hmm:
[...] up is a post cleverly titled Self-linking could make you go blind which goes through the pros and cons of self-linking. The author, Mark Dykeman, doesn’t [...]
1 December 2008, 1:49 pmMiddle Zone Musings » What I Learned From 2008 - Mark Dykeman:
[...] – Self-linking could make you go blind: I learned that self-linking doesn’t actually make you go blind, but link bait can be [...]
17 January 2009, 11:02 pmMathemagenic » Bloggers cited in my dissertation:
[...] 4) Self-linking could make you go blind, 10 September [...]
16 March 2009, 7:43 am