Online Publishers Blocking Links From Each Other?
from the why-bother? dept
It's the latest in backwards online thinking. For years, people who understood what the web really represented have been trying to convince more traditional publishers that there's nothing wrong with linking to other sites - even if those sites are competitor sites. It's not as if your average person can't figure out that you have competitors. JupiterMedia, publisher of Internet.com, who in turn publishes LinuxToday seems to have realized that to some extent. Last week, they published a short story that included an excerpt from and a link to a story on a competing site from CMP. CMP, in their backwards thinking, apparently has decided that they won't accept links from competitors, and is blocking anyone visiting a CMP site by way of LinuxToday.com. This is a step backwards, and a sign that someone at CMP - which, it should be remembered, is a tech publisher - doesn't understand the web. Here's a situation where someone is giving them more traffic. It's actually a competitor, pushing people to their site, and they want to block it?
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Ways around a referring block
If a web site is served on the Internet and no one reads it, does it still exist?
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