I link too much: No, really, I do. Sometimes it gets so I can't leave wordsandphrases alone without attaching a hyperlink. But I like links because they're the modern equivalent of footnotes, allowing you the reader to scratch beneath the surface without interrupting the flow of what I'm trying to write. Hyperlinks are one of the main differences between the online and the printed page, so I think it makes sense to exploit them to the max, where appropriate.
In the first six days of this month I posted 93 different links in the main body of my blog (not that I'm quite sure why I bothered, because only three of those were clicked on by more than ten visitors, pah!). 93 links works out at an average of 15 links per post... and, what do you know, my average is considerably higher than every single one of the 50 blogs in my sample. In second place (with half as many links per post) was the ever-incisive Casino Avenue, but onlytwo of the only other bloggers in my survey exceeded five links per post. Which puts me way out in front. At the other end of the scale, only a tiny fraction of my blogroll posted no hyperlinks whatsoever. But I note with interest that the majority of the randomly selected blogs in my survey were totally link-free, probably because the authors of these pages use their blogs solely as a space in which to write and outpour.
Conclusion: I link to other websites far more often than the great majority of bloggers, and that's despite the fact that very few of you ever seem to explore the links I provide. Not unless I make them [please click here →] reallyobvious. Never mind, you'll learn... How about you?
