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Your site needs a link policy

Posted by Michael Martinez on December 6, 2007 in Link Theory

If you believe that links are endorsements you’ve been listening to too much propaganda. Links are not endorsements. They do not convey opinion. They do not express value or trust.

But have you told your visitors what your links mean to you? Have you told your visitors how they should regard your links?

Link disclaimers are important because they explain your linking policy to your visitors: to whom you link, why you link, and what your link means or does not mean. A link by itself doesn’t really tell the visitor anything. You can link to a site you don’t trust with rel=’nofollow’ but that in no way informs “inexpert visitors” that you are linking to a suspicious site.

What if one of your archaic links points to a domain that expired and has since been usurped by someone distributing malware? Do you want people to believe you’re supporting malware?

I’ve begun working with and shaping link disclaimers. When I find language I am comfortable with I will plaster it across my Xenite.Org network. I link out to a lot of sites and though I try to review old content at least once a year I cannot guarantee I’ll get to everything.

Years ago, in the late 1990s, I decided to create a privacy policy for Xenite.Org. I linked to it from many places (and still do) and people used to write to me and ask permission to copy it for their own sites. Because I operated a Web community (and because I had done research into the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act of 1998) I felt that a privacy policy was important to my community as well as to protect my own rights and interests. It was a little ahead of its time but my passion for doing the right thing helped people see the value in explaining my policies to my community.

We also have a posting policy for our forums and mailing lists. That posting policy has been cited many times through the years by our forum moderators. It helps clarify issues when people are upset by our moderation practices.

And in a way I have maintained a limited linking policy since November 2002, when I formally announced that Xenite.Org would no longer participate in reciprocal linking. We had enjoyed the process for about 4 years and a lot of traffic came through those links. But by 2002 my email was flooded with gratuitous link requests from people who couldn’t get their eyes off the Google Toolbar. It was time to draw a line and stand behind it.

I think that now it has become very important for everyone to seriously consider creating a link policy. Your policy should extend beyond your disclaimer. Simply warning people you’re not responsible for content they find on other sites isn’t enough.

You need to create one of those “incidental pages” that some people don’t like and use it to explain to people who you will link to, why you will link to them, and why they cannot construe your links as endorsements.

A typical business site should be linking out to business partners (vendors and customers), community projects the business supports, secondary Web sites (like blogs and forums the business participates in or maintains), organizations the business participates in, news articles that mention the business or its products and services, press releases the business has published, and similar content the business is clearly and obviously associated with.

But a good business Web site should also share its resources with its community. Tell people about where you are, what your community has to offer them, and where they can find more information about your community. Any organization’s character is partly reflected by the community that organization resides in. Your link policy should explain why you link to your friends and neighbors. Your link policy should make it clear that you do or do not participate in random or targeted reciprocal linking.

Your link policy should also make it clear that you don’t support malicious Web sites. Make it easy for your visitors to report such sites to you because you don’t know when your links will turn sour. Explain to people why it’s important to help you keep your links up-to-date, but also make the commitment to review your links at least once a year to ensure their accuracy and functionality.

Links break as soon as the other site makes a change. The change doesn’t have to be very significant. Until you have the time to update your links, you need to make sure people understand that you may have been linking to something else rather than what they find today.

From a search engine optimization perspective linking policies won’t have much direct impact. If you opt out of reciprocal linking programs, however, making it easy for link researchers to find your policy will help them decide to move on quickly. You can use your link policy page to direct people to other resources that may help them understand the value and importance of linking policies.

For example, I would probably link directly to search engine Webmaster guideline pages. While I disagree with Google’s ugly and unethical recent behavior, I still feel it’s important for people to understand what the search engines’ guidelines are. Before you invite people to exchange links with you, learn what it means to participate in reciprocal link programs. Some reciprocation is good — especially if it’s good for your visitors. But showing people that you have studied the issues lends credibility to your linking policy.

So, that’s my thought on links for the day. I think it’s important that we move forward in a direction that helps make it clear for everyone that links are connectors between Web sites and not conduits for Truth, Science, and Legitimacy. Links can certainly be used to optimize content for search but there is much more to linking than simple search engine optimization.

You need to optimize your site for your visitors first and for search engines second. Part of that visitor optimization process is making sure people understand your positions on privacy, participation, and linking.