Mark Humphrys - Computers and Internet - "Why on earth would I link to you?" - Follow-up page

"Why on earth would I link to you?" - Follow-up page

My article "Why on earth would I link to you?" considered who I linked to from 1994 to 1999 and why. It singled out Yahoo and the Irish Times as major destinations of my links. Here's what happened to my links since 1999.

The article made 2 major points:

1. Directory categories provide ideal destination for most links

In particular, I liked linking to Yahoo.

My thinking on this now: First I changed mainly to linking to Google Directory or Open Directory. Now I tend to link to Wikipedia. Wikipedia, in its "external links" sections, has taken over much of the functionality of web directories. (Though there are problems with Wikipedia.) Google Directory is now entirely gone.
A few months after I wrote the article, Yahoo changed all their links from www.yahoo.co.uk to dir.yahoo.com, and almost all of their old links broke! I had to edit several hundred web pages to make this change.
Yahoo constantly re-organised their directory, causing me lots of work for linking to them.
- I had links to categories in Yahoo such as: http://www.yahoo.com/History/England/English_Civil_War/ But Yahoo constantly re-organised its hierarchy, such that the category moved to: http://www.yahoo.com/England/History/17th_Century/English_Civil_War/ Now, anyone clicking on the link gets a "Category not Found" error, even though there is only one sub-category called "English_Civil_War" in the whole hierarchy.
- These problems rarely occur with Wikipedia. The article will always be http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_Civil_War. Though sometimes categories move with no re-direct.
Other directories: Yahoo got competition in Google Directory or Open Directory.
- Open Directory (dmoz.org)
  - Their Shakespeare category
- Google directory (a licence of Open Directory, with some modifications, e.g. the list is in Google PageRank order)
  - This is now gone.
Wikipedia: Wikipedia has since taken over as my preferred destination for links (despite its flaws).
- Wikipedia on:
  - English Civil War category
    - article
  - Shakespeare category
    - article

Side-by-side comparison of Shakespeare in Yahoo, Open Directory and Wikipedia

In defence of Wikipedia

2. Newspaper archives are a great way of encouraging free ads (incoming links)

In particular, I liked linking to the Irish Times.

My thinking on this now: Linking to newspapers would be great, if only one could trust newspapers to keep their archives online.
Consider what has happened to the Irish Times links since:
1. Just after I wrote the article, the Irish Times moved their entire archive from irish-times.com to ireland.com and there was no simple mapping from the old URL to the new. I had to painstakingly and manually relocate all my links! This is a big assumption about the loyalty of their users - that they are willing to edit all their bookmarks and links - as opposed to just throwing them away.
2. The Irish Times archive then changed to pay-to-view.
3. The Irish Times later moved all its links again, from ireland.com to irishtimes.com, but this time there was a re-direct in place.
In summary, I now prefer to link to societies, activists, think tanks, NGO's, etc. - who are probably more likely to keep their work online forever (since they want to spread their message even if it costs them some profit).

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