Comments on: Linking out isn’t negative, it’s essential!

By: Mark White

Mark White — Thu, 14 Dec 2006 09:17:04 +0000

Nicely put Kian Ann, thanks. To be successful – as well as interesting – blogging needs to be two-way rather than just broadcasting an opinion and then putting your earplugs in!

By: Mark White

Mark White — Thu, 14 Dec 2006 09:10:50 +0000

Lois – thanks for your comment.

You are going about it in exactly the right way – you gain credibility both for your blog and your industry by showing and referencing the information that is written about it.

As for the other blog you mention, everyone has their opinions and there are usually reasons why they have them. Next time, they make a comment about business blogs that you feel is unfair, you might like to make a comment to that effect on their blog. Other than that, I’d suggest that you just keep writing for your readers who clearly value your blog.

By: Kian Ann

Kian Ann — Thu, 14 Dec 2006 04:27:55 +0000

Excellent! Actually this is kind of the best thing I’ve learnt in my short experience in blogging last two months.

I learnt that the blogging is not about publishing, its about networking. Blogging is not about commenting, it is about conversations.

These mindsets bring blogs to a higher level.

By: Lois Sealey

Lois Sealey — Wed, 13 Dec 2006 20:12:46 +0000

Hi Mark

Your excellent post came just when I needed reassurance that I was doing the right thing in being quite generous with outbound links to direct visitors to further sources of relevant information.

I often quote from articles on my topic (home exchange) that have recently been published in newspapers or on websites and, although I obviously want to use quotes that are positive (especially good if there is a reference to my business), I think that by including a link so that visitors to my blog can follow up and read the full article for further (unbiased) information should give more credibility to my blog.

The reason I needed the reassurance is that I keep coming across a personal blog that relates to my topic and, although I’ve quoted from the blog, and included links to particular posts, this blogger is downright stingy with links to other blogs! Also, he/she makes regular comments to the effect that business blogs can’t be trusted to give useful or unbiased information. Of course, a business blog is published to promote a business but that shouldn’t mean that all the information provided is suspect – or that just because a blog is personal, it’s not necessarily any less unbiased.

By: Wayne Smallman

Wayne Smallman — Wed, 13 Dec 2006 11:30:01 +0000

I recently wrote an article on good ‘web neighbourhoods’, which essentially covers the issue of just who / what to link out to.

Relevance is key, followed by authority. But the overall ‘wrapper’ is whether these external sources are from good web neighbourhoods—are they trusted, valued and respected?

If you’re like I am, I might waft my mouse pointer over a link, see the domain name, make the decision of whether I trust that domain name or not and then just accept the source as being authoritative…