Sharing Links, SEO Optimization, Citing your Sources, and the Nature of Conversation
Over at The Blog Herald, J. Racoma discusses linking strategies and citing original sources. The discussion revolves around the question of whether you link to the site where you found the information, or the original source of the information, which are often two different sites. I have an opinion on that, and I want you to hear it.
We can all agree that blogging is writing, hopefully. Despite absolutely gorgeous CSS designed sites, amazing graphics, and high quality embedded media, we still live in the world of text.
Given this fact, I would like to flash back to an idea I learned directly from a writing course. Writing is about conversation. And linking (or citing your sources) is about more than “giving credit where credit is due.”
If writing were a one-way conversation, it would be very bland and quite irrelevant; however, two-way conversation allows for exploration of ideas and debate between professionals.
When you decide to sit down and write something, you do your research first. This is no different in blogging than it is when writing an academic research paper. You are attempting to jump into an ongoing conversation.
If you don’t do your research, it’s akin to walking up to the local bar and just starting to talk in the middle of someone’s conversation. Quite rude, and utterly foolish.
Your research lets you know what the discussion is about, who has said what, and what are the particular positions on a topic of those involved.
Then, when it’s your turn, you discuss. You briefly restate the conversation, you give your opinion, you back up your opinion, or you refute a particular position entirely.
After that point, your work is published and others may join in the conversation in the same way. This is how it’s done in academic research, traditional news reporting, and vocal discussion and debate.
In your paper (or blog) you cite sources as a way of telling who is involved in the conversation, and what has been stated previously.
As far as choosing what source to use, I have held the opinion that you use the most recent, most accurate source you can find. Typically this will be on a better-known blog simply because they more often than not rank better on keyword search terms when doing your research.
However, this raises a credibility issue. If the source you choose is not the original source, what happens when they don’t link to the original source? The “trickle-down” link theory that J. Racoma discusses will not happen. And how can you verify the information if you cant verify the background of it?
Additionally, on the web, we have a serious degradation problem. Information on the web degrades at a staggering rate of around 30% (so says an instructor of mine). So, using sources becomes quite risky, especially as the links back to the original information not only travel deeper in the search page, but farther back in time.
At some point you’ll just have to bite the bullet and rest assured your “due diligence” was done as best it can. I feel that bloggers are expected to do research that is “reasonable.” What reasonable is will depend on your niche; however, if you’re writing on tech issues, as most are, just know that your linking will degrade horrifically over time.
Is there a better method? I’m sure there is, and I’d love to hear it. For now though, this is how I view linking and citing sources.
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