How to Decide Who to Link To
An interesting discussion on Sphinn reveals some differing opinions on which sites people like to link towards.
Andy Beard states:
Wikipedia doesn’t contain any original research. I credit them in the same way they credit their sources. If I didn’t use nofollow, the original sources would have even less chance of becoming visible in the SERPs.
Personally I always try to link directly to a source and maybe include a “via” link, only if it was really needed. I read so many feeds and social news sites that I normally find interesting articles myself without going through another blog.
Since Wikipedia doesn’t have any original information it’s normally best to re-write their content in your own words and either include it on your page or write a separate page somewhere else on your site. Why link to Wikipedia when you can link to yourself?
Of course you shouldn’t always link to your own site so try and find an interesting source either from Wikipedia or by using a Web 2.0 tool such as Digg or StumbleUpon.
I don’t tend to use nofollow very often to link out. If a site is worth passing traffic to then it’s worth passing PageRank to. If a site is unworthy of my traffic it’s also unworthy of my link. In some cases it might pay to add a nofollow such as when linking to a penalised blogger or in a link to Digg.
Too many blogs gain credit for posting about somebody else’s idea so next time you link to a source take the time to make sure it’s the right one.
