AskJeeves used to provide users an option to search using AltaVista, Excite, HotBot, and a host of other search engines. Consequently, AskJeeves always felt lik

AskJeeves used to provide users an option to search using AltaVista, Excite, HotBot, and a host of other search engines. Consequently, AskJeeves always felt like the "natural starting point". Similarly, Michael Arrington builds trust by often mentioning Om Malik (GigaOm) and Richard MacManus (Read/WriteWeb) on his blog. I suppose it leaves the feeling that "He can't possibly promote a rivals blog without having a better one himself!" Ironically, a few weeks ago, Scoble mentioned that bloggers are geedy when it comes to linking (he mentioned Engadget/Gizmodo as an example, and that sure did piss them off). I think I will go ahead and forward this study to him :) That said, I would be interested to know how they conducted this study. From the looks of it, it seems they simply compared a site's worth versus # of outgoing links. The fact that we agree with the study might just be a placebo affect.