We all know that links are the backbone of what keeps the conversation flowing in the blogosphere. It’s how we discover new ideas and interesting people. It is also how we acknowledge other people who have given us food for thought and topics to talk about. Yup, links are an integral part of our blogging experience. Except when there is little or no context.

Rick Mahn has a good post today about link posts - you know those posts that show up in your reader that consist of nothing but links with maybe a few obligatory words that you are suppose to use to decipher what the link is all about.

Guess what?

They suck.

I mean really - c’mon .. how about treating your readers with some intelligence instead of a blind link clicker. Give us a reason to want to click that link. Where’s the context? Why did you find the link interesting and in turn why should I? Is it something you found funny, or something that you are poking fun at, or gawd forbid is it something that might actually be interesting. We’re not asking for the next great American novel here either, just something more than crossword clues.

As it is all you are really doing is wasting your readers valuable time as they click on links that probably turn out to be something that they have already read somewhere else; or don’t interest them at all. It’s not like post headlines are exactly representative of the content

This kind of deception can in turn aggravate the reader to the point that they just start seeing link posts as something to ignore. Which is a shame because there just might be a link there that could develop into a full fledge conversation but you have ruin that chance by not giving any context.

Does it really take that much of your valuable time to even add a sentence or two letting your reader know what the link is about and maybe pass along a ten second opinion at the same time. Does adding some value, some context to those links interrupt your day so much.

I know myself I have gotten to the point that when I see a post with nothing but a list of links that the poster hasn’t even taken the time to add some context to them I don’t bother with them. Without knowing why the poster found them worthy of posting I have no way of knowing if they are of any interest; or value, to me.

Simply put - if you don’t have the time or interest in making those links engaging in some fashion or another don’t expect me to jump for joy at seeing your posts. Along with this this is if your ratio of link posts starts to out weight the posts that got me to subscribe in the first place remember this - I know where the unsubscribe button is.

[tags]blogs, bloggers, links, link posts[/tags]

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