linkaphobic

August 28th, 2013 § 0 comments § permalink

I can’t remember what I was up to but I fell across Malcolm Coles‘s post from last year highlighting 10 (more) websites that have a policy of not allowing incoming links or restricting them only to the homepage.

Bafflement ensues. I never knew there was such a thing.

I understand the need for corporations/organisations/charities to keep an eye on their brands and one way to do that is to try and control the anchor text and what pages are linked to. Fair enough, it’s their brand. They don’t want it trashed, but what sort of fucknut a) reads a website’s terms & conditions before using a site (apart from for research purposes) and b) sees the “Don’t Link to Us!” words and thinks “aw, shucks. I’m not allowed to link directly to that really handy, informative page. I’d better do as I’m told and link to the homepage instead.”

Is this particular little term & condition actually enforce-able? After all, the incoming link is coming from a website that is not under control of the linkaphobic site. Unless the anchor text is a lie or defamatory, then I can’t see how a site can enforce a request to have a link removed.

Getting a link removed or modified is purely down to the owner of the site that is linking out. Having a statement that says you’re not allowed to do something in your own backgarden, seems desperate and a bit of a warning of bully-boy tactics to come if not followed.

Be interesting, be relevant, be nice and then you won’t have to worry about what the incoming links are saying about you.

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