Posting Active Links

[Bowwowmeow]

In the interest of improving our ranking with the seach engines, and thus attracting some real vegans as opposed to all the whammers we keep getting instead, we need to limit the number of outgoing links on our pages. I don't know how much digging I am interested in doing to correct this in our archives, but from now on, I want folks to paste a URL in this way:

somebodyelse's website.com

leaving off the http;/ / www. portion.

Right now we've got too many outgoing links, so, if you want to discuss an article, copy and paste the material here, and leave off the link. If you want to post a picture, post it directly from your photo hosting website, rather than linking to it. If you can't figure out how to do these things, let one of us mods know, and we will be glad to help!

Don't worry if you go ahead and post links. When a mod comes across it, they will simply copy and paste the material you link to, and remove the link. I don't mind links in signatures to your own sites or blogs, and I don't mind having a single link to a vegan friendly site, though I would prefer to get some reciprocity from some of the sites we have links for.

I don't want to stop the flow from site to site, I just don't want active links posted. Its of great benefit to other sites when spiders come here and find their links, and we aren't getting anything in return. Its a little more of a pain to copy and paste an incomplete URL into your browser, but bear with us while we see, over the coming months, whether it makes any difference with traffic to our site.

[paul]

Will do:thumbsup: , well i'll try to rember:dizzy: :dunce:

[Oracl]

Understood! :agree:

[my3labs]

I'm dense. What about a link that is text but is linked to a site? Like this (http://thenakedvegan.net/).
I don't really know how else to describe it. Is it just direct links, ie:
www.thenakedvegan.com
or is it ok to type the text, highlight the text and then link from that?

[Charmagne]

I'm dense. What about a link that is text but is linked to a site? Like this (http://thenakedvegan.net/).
I don't really know how else to describe it. Is it just direct links, ie:
www.thenakedvegan.com
or is it ok to type the text, highlight the text and then link from that?

Some one else will have to answer you - I am REALLY dense when it comes to computers. Need to take some classes. I want to know how you did that. When you click on the work 'this' and the link comes up. Can you explain in elementary school terms?

[Bowwowmeow]

I'm dense. What about a link that is text but is linked to a site? Like this (http://thenakedvegan.net/).
I don't really know how else to describe it. Is it just direct links, ie:
www.thenakedvegan.com (http://www.thenakedvegan.com)
or is it ok to type the text, highlight the text and then link from that?
When a URL is typed out, like www.thenakedvegan.net, it automatically creates a clickable link. To remove the clickability, type thenakedvegan.net. I prefer this for antivegan websites, like Weston Price, for example, as we don't need to do them any favors. I also don't want too many clickable links for vegan or animal related sites who won't share links with us. Now, I haven't gone around and asked yet, so I'm not too fussy about it.

Embedding a URL into text, like this, (http://www.thenakedvegan.net/index.php) has the same effect as posting a clickable URL. The search engines will pick it up as an outgoing link, and if we have too many of those, our ranking goes down.

I'm not especially competitive with other forums, but it would be nice to attract a few more actual vegans, instead of all these whammers, so we are trying this out for now.

Don't worry though. If its too confusing, we'll just edit posts. Don't feel bad if you get a link edited out of your post!

[Oracl]

Some one else will have to answer you - I am REALLY dense when it comes to computers. Need to take some classes. I want to know how you did that. When you click on the work 'this' and the link comes up. Can you explain in elementary school terms?
Are you asking how to make a word, like 'this' for example, become a clickable link, Charmagne? :)

[Charmagne]

Yes Oracl - I won't do it on here because BWM said it also shows up as an active link but I will use it on the ALF forum. Can you explain?

[Oracl]

This is how I do it:

Type the word that you want to use as the active link, such as 'this'.

Highlight the word 'this'.

With the word highlighted, click on the button that says 'Insert Link', put in the URL of the site and click OK.

It will then be embedded into the highlighted word, this (http://www.thenakedvegan.net).

:)

[Charmagne]

OK - thank you - I did it but did not post it. I thought it was something I had to do on my computer - didn't realize it was right in front of me.:o So is there a way to do this in e-mails?

[Oracl]

If there is, I have not learned how to do it! :bhead: :D

[Oracl]

Um, Charmagne, isn't it way past normal bedtime in your bit of the world? (Or are my world clocks way out?) :cheeky: :p :laugh:

[Bowwowmeow]

Yes Oracl - I won't do it on here because BWM said it also shows up as an active link but I will use it on the ALF forum. Can you explain?
I don't mind a link or two here and there Charmagne, but whenever material in links can be copied and pasted I do prefer it, and always have, because links break and info can then be lost.

[1vegan]

So is there a way to do this in e-mails?

yes, you should be able to do that in emails too.

but only if you send out mails in html format, and it depends on the receivers settings if they see it like that or as plain text.

<A HREF="http://www.yourdomain.com/">site</A>

Probably like that, but I never tried it myself :)

[Charmagne]

yes, you should be able to do that in emails too.

but only if you send out mails in html format, and it depends on the receivers settings if they see it like that or as plain text.

<A HREF="http://www.yourdomain.com/">site</A>

Probably like that, but I never tried it myself :)

Thank you - I will try it on the next one!!

[Bowwowmeow]

Update:

I have begun editing the outgoing links in our News threads. Please remember to copy and paste articles. Please do not copy and paste the word "copyright' that may be found at the ends of articles, or the little copyright symbol. Someone searching for copyrighted material can search on the word "copyright" and find articles. I am pretty sure that any article available without an online subscription may be posted here, especially if they have sharing or emailing links with the articles, but I would rather avoid making it easier for someone to come here and make trouble for us.

Links to petitions and quizzes are ok. Quizzes and other fun stuff should be fun and easy to access for us. I don't want to make everything a pain in the butt! But avoid the repeated posting of duplicate links. One link per quiz or blogthing thread is sufficient, and activism posts often repeat the same link many times in one message, which is not necessary. Also, if you quote a post with an outgoing link, please deactivate the link in your quote.

Links referring to naked vegan threads are to be encouraged.

Links in signatures will always be welcome, as long as the content is acceptable. In other words, no links to pro-animal cruelty websites or other non-vegan crap will be allowed.

[Bowwowmeow]

I'm doing this because a website Gliondrach submitted our forum to said we have way too many outgoing links, which is not good for our ranking with the search engines. I never thought it was that big a deal, but I guess it is! :o