> I'm just trying to further theorize why many websites do not link externally. Short-sightedness is the best I can come up with. Surely some sort of short-sig

> I'm just trying to further theorize why many websites do not link externally. Short-sightedness is the best I can come up with. Surely some sort of short-sightedness I think mostly related to the paper-printing philosophy presented by the ultimate-parent comment. From an SEO angle, I'm guessing it has less to do with internal vs external links, but an attempt to generate more backlinks to the secondary source (boosting SEO of the secondary source) instead of providing an easier path to create backlinks to the primary source. > Recently I've noticed more are linking to primary sources, but it wasn't so common as recent as 2 years ago, in my recollection. I'm glad this does seem to be the trend recently for a lot of sites; I don't remember so clearly the state a few years ago.