I have a new toy — the Community News plugin. Click through to my website (if you’re reading this on livejournal, then hit “comment”) and you’ll see them on the top of the sidebar.

What it is?

it’s basically like a widget where anyone can add a piece of news, or information, with a link to follow. You have a brief description space as well.

Now, I’m still figuring this out and am using the same policy as my comments moderation, so in other words the first ever submission has to be approved by me. Thereafter, you can add at will.

Not sure if I’ll keep this, but I like the potential, a nice way for people to help each other get news traveling on teh net.

It’s got its own feed, so if I decide to keep it what I’ll probably do is to put it through feedburner and add it to Friendfeed as well.

Anyways, it’s new. Still playing with it, seeing what it can and whether it’s worth keeping. Tell me what you think — does it sound like a good idea or not? if a feed were made available, would you sign up for it?

Oh, and please do add some news or there’s nothing to play with! any news at all — interesting website, funny article, an interview, a blog post of yours you feel is really good, short story you have published somewhere, book release page on Amazon, whatever.

Quite  a while back¹, Sherwood Smith pondered the practice of linking on the internet.

Now, her thoughts there revolve more around the type of linking where you put static links to other bloggers in your sidebar, something many of us do. (Her thoughts also traveled around the social medias sphere in that post, but we’re talking linking only here). That’s one type of linking action, but there are a few types and I’m going to define them as follows:

Types of links

1. Blogroll — these are the links you put in your sidebar, to other bloggers or websites.
2. Linkposts — A single blog post which is *dingding* links. Examples: Jay Lake’s link salads; Charles Tan’s (near) daily plugs;  Dan Goodman; Vern’s weekly linkblog digest . I currently call them nibbles, and have decided to post them about once a month or so. Either is subject to change, depending on what I feel is most effective in future. Notice, each of us goes about it in different ways (the form, not the content) — different posting schedules, different lenghts, different write-ups and titles. There’s no good or wrong here, just different styles. But they’re all the same thing — a post collecting stuff we find interesting and want to share with others.
3. Linky-links — these are links you make in-post, most often to a) reference something, strengthening your post, b) because your blog is in answer/ reaction to that post or c) because you can.
4. (Livejournal) usernames — ok, technically these are linky-links? but it is common on lj for bloggers to drop the name rather than the blog, or the specific post they’re referencing. However, there are times when name dropping is the handiest option, like with memes and quizzes or when you found an article from another person’s blog and it’s not a bad thing to do a shout-out. We can maybe call this “giving credit where due.”

For now I want to talk a bit about the Linky-links, and anchor text.

(everything I’m about to say is summarized there. but onward!)

What is Anchor Text?

The text that anchors your link, that word or phrase highlighted and when you click on it, zomg it takes you somewhere else!

Why it matters

Search engines

Srsly now, why does it matter?

search engines. srsly.

As the saying goes, linking is the currency of the internet.The more people who link to you and the more “influential” those blogs, the higher you yourself rank in the search engines. Not just by name, but also area of expertise.

Directly what you’re doing when you link, is to tell your own readers, “this is interesting.” you point their attention to someone else. This is how many of us find each other, right? By bloggers we’re currently reading linking to/ referencing someone else.

Indirectly, you’re talking to Google et al saying, “this is hot property.”

To dominate the google rankings (your blog/ website shows up on page 1) is why so many people are obsessed with search engine optimization. Nobody likes talking into a vacuum; bloggers want to be found. Linking is employed to get traffic/ readers.

The drive for fame can of course be abused. And is.². See also Google Bomb.

The direct thing is easy enough for people to cop. The indirect thingy (an invisible, mindless, emotionless audience) is harder to understand and is the reason we need to start putting a bit more thought into how we link.

What happens when you link?

While you are directly sending traffic to that blogger or specific blog post, indirectly you are empowering the word or phrase you highlighted, attaching that post to that word/ phrase — the hyperlinked text is an indication of the topic/ subject.

Now, understand, there’s no real right or wrong here — it all depends on what I, the linker, want. But what I want has an effect on the linkee, and so I need to consider the impact, no matter how miniscule, my linking could have on that person.

Because you can do it wrong — digression:

Sometimes people link to the blogger, instead of the specific post. Wrong? Yes, I say. Look at my first paragraph — I’m linking to a post 3 months old. In blogger world, with its rapid attention decay, a redundant length of time. Usually, people link to a post very recent and so if I’d just linked to Sherwood Smith it would have made no difference. 3 months later, it’s of not much use to my readers. They now have to sift through Sherwood’s entire blog³ to find the one thing I’m referencing.

Tess Gerritsen did this recently. 3 months from now, if I followed that link it would not take me to the post she’s referencing (The Tao of publishing).It would take me to the blog of the person who wrote the post she referenced.

Make sense?

If you want to give a nod or mention someone, then link to the person/ blog itself (you boost the name itself up the Google charts). If you are referencing a specific post, then please dear lord god almighty, link to that post. And now use your anchor text to link to a key word or phrase that that post is about, and not the person’s name, so that when clueless me 2 years from now am doing the google dance on a specific topic? that post could be there. The bulk of articles that helped me get a grip on/ explain wtf is blogging and social media date back to 2006. That’s that other audience you’re linking for.

That is the sum total of what anchor text is about — you’re not boosting a specific individual higher in a specific area of expertise, you’re helping the search engines to properly index the web. You’re helping me doing the Google dance on a given topic find the best and most interesting material about that topic.

Anchor text in action

This post is already longer than I intended, so I’m going to wrap up fast using an example I’m calling “the progression of David’s linking.” We are of course assuming David knows about links.

1) In the Beginning:

zomg, you guys, this is so cool:

http://david-de-beer.stumbleupon.com/tag/linking/⁴

2) The Apprentice:

Found an index of blogs about linking, click here.

(congratulations! you have just added power to the word “here”, and helped Google to properly index a page on link-topic blogs under the topic “here”)

3) The Novice:

This is interesting.

(??? let’s not even comment, this is so a step backwards.)

4) Clueless dude hears about anchor text; he is still clueless but let’s pretend…

4a) David de Beer read the Heroes in training anthology.

4b) David de Beer read the Heroes in training anthology.

4c) David de Beer read the Heroes in training anthology.

4d) David de Beer read the Heroes in training anthology.

Personally, I’m not a big fan of d) but pretty much all these are “correct.” All that needs to be decided is what’s my anchor text going to be? When the Google spiders come a knocking and follow the links, what Topic/ subject (the word/ phrase hyperlinked) am I telling them to index this link under?

ok, that’s it.

Linking is great, but how you link is crucial.

Anything unclear, or you disagree, please pipe up in the comments.

1. and I had not realized how long back until I went to look for it, feels like only yesterday! [↩]
2. if this link doesn’t work, then google “seo black” [↩]
3. a practise I’m not opposed to, she has a good blog [↩]
4. it’s a page from my stumbleupon profile, an index to blogs I marked linking [↩]

teh website has gone pink for Oct, with that kind of background decor parents see and go “so cuuuuute!” put up in their babies rooms and then years after wonder what they did to make their kids grow up traumatized.

But, seriously, how can I resist a theme that has OM NOM NOM NOM! for a description? I am totally keeping this one.

This is primarily how to cross-post between blogs and networks that I’m familiar with — wordpress and Facebook.

Crossposting from Wordpress to:

Livejournal:

http://code.google.com/p/ljxp/
This is the plugin I use. Very easy — upload, activate, connect. You’re done. Customizable (comments on both blogs or one, comment link at top or button, use cuts/ read more, etc). Haven’t had any problems.
Technically speaking, this should allow you to crosspost to other journal based systems as well, like Insane journal or whatever (oh, christ, I have an IJ account now that I think of it. keep forgetting).

MySpace:

http://noumenon.roderickrussell.com/wordpress-to-myspace-auto-crossposting
It…works. Annoying, unstable, but it works. I suggest using the default option and only posting a link to your myspace blog. annoying why? because every time I hit “publish new blog”, I got error messages. However, there are error messages and then there’s an error message which actually indicates succesful cross-post. Then, I’d have to retype my blog url, and re-login. As I said annoying. I no longer have a myspace account so this not my problem is any longer.

Facebook:

The Wordbook plugin.
http://www.tsaiberspace.net/blog/2007/07/29/wordbook/
very stable, very easy, posts a link to Facebook when you update your blog. I’ve deactivated it because Facebook allows for blog imports within itself (see below)

Twitter:

I don’t cross-post my blog to Twitter or import my tweets to my blog since, heh, I tend to view Twitter as a glorified combo status updates and chat. But, there is an armada of tools out there that allow crossposting; since this isn’t something I do, but several people I know do make use of it, and the staggering amount of options can be initimidating to weed through and find the best — those people crossposting between wordpress and Twitter, do feel free to chime in in the comments sections with your personal recommendations.

Importing blogs to Facebook:

the screenshots will explain it best.

Log into Facebook. Click on your name at the top:

That takes you to your public profile, where you’ll see a big orange Import button near the top. Click it:

It brings up this list of options:

from where you can import your blog by copying the url (eg, http://david-debeer.com, or http://david-de-beer.livejournal.com. I didn’t add the “www” but you never know, keep it in mind if you’re having problems), as well as from other profiles, like Stumbleupon, lastfm, Flickr, etc. That should do the trick, and any time you add content to those profiles, a link notification will show up on your profile and in your friendsnewsfeeds.
There is a time delay, a bit erratic, but I’d say that if there’s been no update after 24 hours it’s probably not working.
There is a livejournal to Facebook crossposter. I don’t know what it is, suggest you contact Aliette de Bodard or Chris Azure for details. They’re the only two I can think of right now who use it/ have used it.