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Maybe I’m misremembering, but I feel like this used to be a widespread thing one did circa 2000-2005 (before Web 2.0). I remember emailing a handful of sites an
by keiferski 3y ago
Maybe I’m misremembering, but I feel like this used to be a widespread thing one did circa 2000-2005 (before Web 2.0). I remember emailing a handful of sites and asking them if I could link to their content, and this being a normal request.
- t0mas88 3y agoI think the typical email about links from around that time was for SEO optimization. They would request that you link to their site from a high ranking domain in exchange for a link from them back to you.
- keiferski 3y agoNo, that’s a different thing and it still happens today. I remember it being considered polite to ask people before placing a permanent link on your website. (Which was different from posting it on a forum.)
- cvalka 3y agoWhy would you email them for their permission? Are you nuts?
- cl42 3y ago+1 People disagreeing with your or shocked by you might not remember (or maybe are too young?) the Internet of the 1990s. Search engines sucked, directories were the thing, and putting your site in a directory or linking to a website was, sociologically + relatively speaking, a pretty big deal. Back then, there was no expectation that a website was publicly available to everyone, even though it was accessible if you knew the URL. Sort of like today people don't share their home addresses or photos of their living rooms unless there's a good reason to do so. EDIT: a better example in relation to today might be Tor addresses or dark web URLs.
- keiferski 3y agoYes, exactly. It wasn’t a requirement to ask, but there was a general assumption that a personal site was like the webmaster’s (whew there’s an old word) front porch, and you shouldn’t send a bunch of people there without asking first.
- cwillu 3y agoIt was widespread, but so was mockery of the concept of needing permission to link.
- kelnos 3y agoSure, and I remember thinking the practice was just as stupid then (and in the 90s) as it is now.
- SunlitCat 3y agoBeing on the internet since 1997, I can't remember anything liked that needed. I wasn't having a homepage back then, but I was interested in having one, so I've read quite a few resources about that way back. What I can remember, is something like website rings (or something like that) where people joined some group of homepage owners and kept a list of links to each other (and / or a "next" and "previous" link to someone else's homepage).