A few, vital notes on linking ...

We all know that linking is an important, even handy, aspect of blogging.

We discussed the mechanics of linking here.

But a refresher might be in order, along with a point or two beyond.

1.) You don't need to reproduce the link in the link.

In other words, you don't have to do it like this: http://mysablogs.blogspot.com/2007/01/how-to-hot-link-to-something.html

It's unnecessary because it's highly unlikely someone will copy-and-paste the address off the page rather than just click on it. Even if they just want the address, they can "right-click" on it and that'll do the job.

This becomes a problem, sometimes, when you have incredibly long, involved links, and these have a tendency to "blow out" the page, making it impossibly wide for most browsers.

And that will stay with your page until the offending entry drops off the page.

It's better to just link up a few words, a phrase, or a sentence that'll send people to where you want them to go.

2.) Try to throw the "target=_new" thing in there.

There are valid schools of thought that discourage the use of this code, which causes the item to open in a new browser window. I don't discount their views, but ... as for now ... our style is to use "target=_new" (or a variant) when we're sending someone "off-site."

Cleaning up link code is a big part of what slows us down when we're trying to plow through a chunk of blog entries. (Fixing "curly" quotes is probably No. 1, though.)

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