Reclaiming an ancient digital species that many are forgetting: the hyperlink

I've been publishing a blog for 21 years and sometimes, looking back, I remember when this format was very common.

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Back then, the dialogue between blogs was much more fluid than it is now (after all, there were more of them). It was common to comment on or reply to what others were saying, and there was a rule of etiquette for this: link to what you were commenting on. For any blogger, not linking to an article or news item when talking about it was considered bad form and rude. After all, your readers had the right to verify if what you were saying about the original article was true.

A link, originally known as a hyperlink, is the part of a website's text that connects to another website. Traditionally, underlined blue text was used to highlight hyperlinks, although this changed as web design became more sophisticated. Hyperlinks are a tool that has added enormous value to the internet, as they provide access to information sources not found in printed texts.

I know I might sound like an 80-year-old grandpa rambling about his war stories, but I'm saying all this because, for the past few years, hyperlinks seem to be fading into oblivion for many authors. The obsession with SEO (search engine optimization) has led to attempts to ensure that a reader never leaves the website they're reading, even if it means denying them access to the sources of information or resources that would allow them to expand their knowledge.

Twenty years ago, hyperlinks were commonplace in many digital media outlets, especially those published exclusively online (traditional media never adopted this practice, with a few notable exceptions). Unfortunately, over time many media outlets have abandoned this practice, although it can still be found on some sites. For example, several Ukrainian and Russian opposition online newspapers that I read regularly include links to sources in their articles. After all, these links lend credibility in highly controversial environments, such as during a war.

Links have been used extensively on social media for years. Networks like Twitter have been the best example of link usage since their inception. However, it's increasingly common to find news channels on Twitter that never link to anything, even when sharing information from others. Sometimes it's a real headache to find the source of that information. Often, these types of channels are used to spread fake news, and the reason they don't link to anything is because there are no sources to back up what they publish.

Today I want to champion that age-old digital species that many are forgetting, because I believe that links add value to an article and offer readers a guarantee, since they can personally verify the sources of each piece of information. Surely this means losing points in terms of SEO, but web positioning shouldn't come at the expense of the credibility and value of the information. After all, if a digital publication doesn't include links, what can it offer that an old-fashioned print newspaper didn't already have, except for speed of publication?

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Image: OpenArt.