23 ms·

For some weird reason, outlinks are to be avoided, because it's seen as "leaving your site". In a store front, I can see that making sense. In a site to provide

For some weird reason, outlinks are to be avoided, because it's seen as "leaving your site". In a store front, I can see that making sense. In a site to provide information... not so much.

ethbr1 2y ago
News sites aren't just providing information: they're trading reporting for ad impressions.
- tmtvl 2y ago
  Serious question: are paywalled news articles better at outlinking and do they have no ads?
  - nemomarx 2y ago
    in my experience of i pay a sub it removes ads from the site at least, although not sponsored content
  - 2OEH8eoCRo0 2y ago
    NYT will often outlink or if they're talking about a report, will provide a PDF of the report. Example: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/02/us/politics/trump-jan-6-case-jack-smith-evidence.html https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/02/us/politics/trump-jan-6-c...
  - mrandish 2y ago
    No, not in my experience. They usually have less external ads but a lot of other cruft is still there. Enshittification (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enshittification https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enshittification) is getting so bad, I'd be willing to pay for sites that actually work. So far, paywall offers are just to remove external ads and that's only part of what I want. The rest of what I want is for the fucking site to actually work. For example, both Google and Amazon search have been seriously degraded and de-featured in recent years and it's been done very intentionally and systematically to optimize for their ad or sales revenue. I suspect this degradation has crept deeper into their stacks than just at the top layer where it could be easily turned off with a flag and sold as a paywall upgrade.
  - nnf 2y ago
    The Atlantic seems to have no problem linking to multiple outside sources in seemingly every article I read.
    - JumpCrisscross 2y ago
      The Financial Times is also good about this.
      - 8bitsrule 2y ago
        Lately I think I've been seeing more science news sites linking to source articles, with DOIs usually abstracts-only are viewable) and Arxiv (often with PDFs) for example..
      - hammock 2y ago
        Every FT article is paywalled
        hnben 2y ago
        iirc they are soft-walled, or at least they were the last time i checked, about a year ago. I forgot how exactly you could bypass the wall, i think something with cookies and private browsing, and ip-addresses.
        disgruntledphd2 2y ago
        Or you could just pay for it. It's expensive but totally worth it (IME, obviously).
    - hammock 2y ago
      The Atlantic is bankrolled by Steve Jobs wife and historically is more of a “think tank” outlet than a journalistic enterprise
- safety1st 2y ago
  It's a stretch to call many many of the stories these sites produce "reporting," I'm thinking in particular about the "Someone posted to Twitter and other people posted angrily to Twitter in response" genre
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
kredd 2y ago
If You leave the website, your eyes won't catch a headline that's on the side that you might also click, spending more time on your website. Which translates to more money.
throwaway48476 2y ago
As a culture we don't value primary sources.
godelski 2y ago
> For some weird reason, outlinks are to be avoided Because people don't understand metrics other than "optimize this". So they take social media metrics and apply them where they don't belong. To me fair, news is probably pretty hard to measure. Since the real value is in quality. People want information, quickly available, but accurate and easily readable. I mean isn't a big function of the news to explain complex topics more simply? I don't think there are any half way decent metrics for quality in really any domain.
lazide 2y ago
They aren’t there to provide information, they are there to trap/collect eyeballs.

For some weird reason, outlinks are to be avoided, because it's seen as "leaving your site". In a store front, I can see that making sense. In a site to provide information... not so much.

ethbr1 2y ago

News sites aren't just providing information: they're trading reporting for ad impressions.

tmtvl 2y ago
Serious question: are paywalled news articles better at outlinking and do they have no ads?
- nemomarx 2y ago
  in my experience of i pay a sub it removes ads from the site at least, although not sponsored content
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 2y ago
  NYT will often outlink or if they're talking about a report, will provide a PDF of the report. Example: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/02/us/politics/trump-jan-6-case-jack-smith-evidence.html https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/02/us/politics/trump-jan-6-c...
- mrandish 2y ago
  No, not in my experience. They usually have less external ads but a lot of other cruft is still there. Enshittification (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enshittification https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enshittification) is getting so bad, I'd be willing to pay for sites that actually work. So far, paywall offers are just to remove external ads and that's only part of what I want. The rest of what I want is for the fucking site to actually work. For example, both Google and Amazon search have been seriously degraded and de-featured in recent years and it's been done very intentionally and systematically to optimize for their ad or sales revenue. I suspect this degradation has crept deeper into their stacks than just at the top layer where it could be easily turned off with a flag and sold as a paywall upgrade.
- nnf 2y ago
  The Atlantic seems to have no problem linking to multiple outside sources in seemingly every article I read.
  - JumpCrisscross 2y ago
    The Financial Times is also good about this.
    - 8bitsrule 2y ago
      Lately I think I've been seeing more science news sites linking to source articles, with DOIs usually abstracts-only are viewable) and Arxiv (often with PDFs) for example..
    - hammock 2y ago
      Every FT article is paywalled
      - hnben 2y ago
        iirc they are soft-walled, or at least they were the last time i checked, about a year ago. I forgot how exactly you could bypass the wall, i think something with cookies and private browsing, and ip-addresses.
        disgruntledphd2 2y ago
        Or you could just pay for it. It's expensive but totally worth it (IME, obviously).
  - hammock 2y ago
    The Atlantic is bankrolled by Steve Jobs wife and historically is more of a “think tank” outlet than a journalistic enterprise
safety1st 2y ago
It's a stretch to call many many of the stories these sites produce "reporting," I'm thinking in particular about the "Someone posted to Twitter and other people posted angrily to Twitter in response" genre

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

kredd 2y ago

If You leave the website, your eyes won't catch a headline that's on the side that you might also click, spending more time on your website. Which translates to more money.

throwaway48476 2y ago

As a culture we don't value primary sources.

godelski 2y ago

> For some weird reason, outlinks are to be avoided Because people don't understand metrics other than "optimize this". So they take social media metrics and apply them where they don't belong. To me fair, news is probably pretty hard to measure. Since the real value is in quality. People want information, quickly available, but accurate and easily readable. I mean isn't a big function of the news to explain complex topics more simply? I don't think there are any half way decent metrics for quality in really any domain.

lazide 2y ago

They aren’t there to provide information, they are there to trap/collect eyeballs.