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A lot of sites seem terrified that users might (gasp!) leave their site to go elsewhere. The result is ridiculous articles like this: 42 startups that grew to b

A lot of sites seem terrified that users might (gasp!) leave their site to go elsewhere. The result is ridiculous articles like this: 42 startups that grew to be worth billions in 2015. Not a single link to any of the comapnies mentioned in the article. http://uk.businessinsider.com/new-billion-dollar-startup-unicorns-in-2015-2015-12 http://uk.businessinsider.com/new-billion-dollar-startup-uni... Another horrible trend is to hide links behind Javascript. Simple Hypertext links should never require Javascript to be clickable, on many websites they very often are.

ethbro 11y ago
This. I've tried to stop reading new articles from sites that seemingly only allow inward hyperlinks to be posted with their articles. Informally, through personal observation: if anyone has a list of actual editorial policies that preclude doing that, I'd be happy to look at it! BBC News, afaict, will typically drop an external link next to the article.
petepete 11y ago
Our company blog is like this, I left a comment on the related LinkedIn post (that links to our own website using some URL-shortening service!) saying "this doesn't really make any sense without citations and providing links to the services discussed" and received a request to remove my comment shortly after. The marketing team believe linking to sites other than our own drive people away. Instead they internally link to product/service pages that are often barely relevant and rarely (if ever) what anyone reading the post wants to see. It makes me want to throw the whole thing away and start over.
- unusximmortalis 11y ago
  Yes yes, let's do that. Let's start over with all the lessons learned. Let's build something that will not be able to be morphed into something close to ... hidious.
jacquesm 11y ago
Pet peeve: pdf links on google. When you want to mail someone a link to a pdf you search for the pdf, then copy-and-paste the link from the results page and boom a whole screen full of garbage and a link that is next to unusable instead of the actual link to the document. Super annoying.
- gengkev 11y ago
 Actually, this happens for all Google results, not just PDFs.
 - jacquesm 11y ago
 With a normal result you can just click on it and then cut-paste the URL to your email. But with a pdf the link will simply start a download without ever showing you the link.
 - gengkev 11y ago
 Hm, I hadn't considered that. I use Chrome, so for downloads I can press Ctrl+J and copy the link from the Downloads page.
 - frik 11y ago
 Yes, very annoying. It's a bug. Initially a search result link on Google looked like this: <a href="http://example.com">Example http://example.com</a> Around 2002 they wanted to track which link you clicked: <a onclick="trackpage(this)" href="http://example.com">Example http://example.com</a> The trackpage() functions does a GET request to Google just before the href opens the link. This was in the days before AJAX! If you deactivated JavaScript, the noscript looked like this: <a href="http://google.com?redirect=example.com">Example http://example.com</a> Around 2009 Google introduced a bug, and now every search result looks like the former noscript version - super annoying: <a href="http://google.com?redirect=example.com">Example http://example.com</a>
 - treebeard901 11y ago
ArchieT 11y ago
I haven't encountered any of these js hyperlinks, or did not distinguish them when I encountered such — could someone provide an example?
- open-source-ux 11y ago
  Here's the most recent one I encountered: https://plus.google.com/collections/featured https://plus.google.com/collections/featured This looks like a web page to me, not a web app. but Google seem to have engineered it to render more like a web app. If Javascript is disabled, the links in the 'cards' lead nowhere. If Javascript is enabled, you can't hover over a link and see the URL destination in the browser status bar. You can't right-click the links in the cards and choose 'Open link in New tab' either.
  - ArchieT 11y ago
    Right, these are js links, but they point from Google+ to Google+ — they are thus not exactly an example of js links desired to prevent user from leaving the website or at least get more information to. These are pretty annoying as well, though.
lazyjones 11y ago
> A lot of sites seem terrified that users might (gasp!) leave their site to go elsewhere That's a Google-inflicted SEO trend. People are worried about "losing PR" to linked sites / being considered link farms rather than "leaf" sites with content. This kind of SEO is worse for the structure of the web and web page usability than most of the tricks used by FB et al.
- andybak 11y ago
  Is this still valid SEO advice or another one of those "it was sort of true once upon a time" things that gets passed around?
  - lazyjones 11y ago
    > *Is this still valid SEO advice I don't know if it ever was - SEO "experts" will tell you all kinds of amazing things, usually not what Google recommends (but Google naturally doesn't give SEO advice, just suggestions for playing nice). But even if it was valid advice, a more useful page would probably win in the long run - see Wikipedia and consider what it would be like without external references in the articles.
tim333 11y ago
Perhaps greater than the fear of users leaving their site is the fear of fixing link rot for the next two decades as most of the 42 startups are acquired, go bust or change their name.

ethbro 11y ago

This. I've tried to stop reading new articles from sites that seemingly only allow inward hyperlinks to be posted with their articles. Informally, through personal observation: if anyone has a list of actual editorial policies that preclude doing that, I'd be happy to look at it! BBC News, afaict, will typically drop an external link next to the article.

petepete 11y ago

Our company blog is like this, I left a comment on the related LinkedIn post (that links to our own website using some URL-shortening service!) saying "this doesn't really make any sense without citations and providing links to the services discussed" and received a request to remove my comment shortly after. The marketing team believe linking to sites other than our own drive people away. Instead they internally link to product/service pages that are often barely relevant and rarely (if ever) what anyone reading the post wants to see. It makes me want to throw the whole thing away and start over.

unusximmortalis 11y ago
Yes yes, let's do that. Let's start over with all the lessons learned. Let's build something that will not be able to be morphed into something close to ... hidious.

jacquesm 11y ago

Pet peeve: pdf links on google. When you want to mail someone a link to a pdf you search for the pdf, then copy-and-paste the link from the results page and boom a whole screen full of garbage and a link that is next to unusable instead of the actual link to the document. Super annoying.

gengkev 11y ago
Actually, this happens for all Google results, not just PDFs.
- jacquesm 11y ago
 With a normal result you can just click on it and then cut-paste the URL to your email. But with a pdf the link will simply start a download without ever showing you the link.
 - gengkev 11y ago
 Hm, I hadn't considered that. I use Chrome, so for downloads I can press Ctrl+J and copy the link from the Downloads page.
- frik 11y ago
 Yes, very annoying. It's a bug. Initially a search result link on Google looked like this: <a href="http://example.com">Example http://example.com</a> Around 2002 they wanted to track which link you clicked: <a onclick="trackpage(this)" href="http://example.com">Example http://example.com</a> The trackpage() functions does a GET request to Google just before the href opens the link. This was in the days before AJAX! If you deactivated JavaScript, the noscript looked like this: <a href="http://google.com?redirect=example.com">Example http://example.com</a> Around 2009 Google introduced a bug, and now every search result looks like the former noscript version - super annoying: <a href="http://google.com?redirect=example.com">Example http://example.com</a>
 - treebeard901 11y ago

ArchieT 11y ago

I haven't encountered any of these js hyperlinks, or did not distinguish them when I encountered such — could someone provide an example?

open-source-ux 11y ago
Here's the most recent one I encountered: https://plus.google.com/collections/featured https://plus.google.com/collections/featured This looks like a web page to me, not a web app. but Google seem to have engineered it to render more like a web app. If Javascript is disabled, the links in the 'cards' lead nowhere. If Javascript is enabled, you can't hover over a link and see the URL destination in the browser status bar. You can't right-click the links in the cards and choose 'Open link in New tab' either.
- ArchieT 11y ago
  Right, these are js links, but they point from Google+ to Google+ — they are thus not exactly an example of js links desired to prevent user from leaving the website or at least get more information to. These are pretty annoying as well, though.

lazyjones 11y ago

> A lot of sites seem terrified that users might (gasp!) leave their site to go elsewhere That's a Google-inflicted SEO trend. People are worried about "losing PR" to linked sites / being considered link farms rather than "leaf" sites with content. This kind of SEO is worse for the structure of the web and web page usability than most of the tricks used by FB et al.

andybak 11y ago
Is this still valid SEO advice or another one of those "it was sort of true once upon a time" things that gets passed around?
- lazyjones 11y ago
  > *Is this still valid SEO advice I don't know if it ever was - SEO "experts" will tell you all kinds of amazing things, usually not what Google recommends (but Google naturally doesn't give SEO advice, just suggestions for playing nice). But even if it was valid advice, a more useful page would probably win in the long run - see Wikipedia and consider what it would be like without external references in the articles.

tim333 11y ago

Perhaps greater than the fear of users leaving their site is the fear of fixing link rot for the next two decades as most of the 42 startups are acquired, go bust or change their name.