It Ain't The Link, It's What You Do With The Traffic
from the sigh dept
A media consultant, Arnon Mishkin, has a post up at Paid Content supposedly about The Fallacy Of The Link Economy, where he suggests that those of us (he links to us at Techdirt, for example) who are insisting that aggregators aren't a problem and that news sites should be happy about getting linked to, are wrong. But he seems to have gotten the basic argument wrong. He seems to think we're saying that the all you have to do is get linked to, and you should be happy.But that's not what we're saying.
The link is a vote of confidence, but it's just a start. From there, you then need to actually do something with that link. Mishkin dismisses the value of the link by noting that most people who visit those aggregator sites don't click through. That's not news. That's the way it's always been, but that doesn't mean there isn't value there. On this, I can speak from personal experience. Over the years, we never worked that hard at building our own traffic (we never built a business that depended on traffic), but our traffic kept growing. Any time we were linked to from larger sites, some people clicked through, but we always knew it was a small fraction of the overall traffic to that originator site. But, so what? It's still new traffic that wouldn't have found us otherwise. On top of that, we knew that most of that traffic would visit us just that one time and not think to come back -- but again, that's fine. Because what did happen is that we started to build up our reputation.
So, no, getting a single site to link to you isn't that meaningful, and won't drive that much traffic initially (or even repeat traffic), but as you build up your reputation, and get linked multiple times in multiple places, and then build up credibility based on your content and your community then people start to come back. So, getting linked from a certain site once is meaningless. But as we would get linked multiple times, we'd start to notice that then our traffic would increase. It was a case of that other site helping introduce others to us, not because of a single link, but the combination of being linked to multiple times, along with having good content and good discussions -- and then people would realize that it was worth visting us regularly (or adding us to their RSS reader or whatever).
It's an ongoing process, but the fact that most people don't click through on a single aggregator link is meaningless. Those people wouldn't have seen the story anyway, but it may help build up the brand of the original site. And, I can assure you, over time, if you keep providing quality, that pays off.
The problem here is that Mishkin and others seem to think the value is in the single atomic story. It's not and never has been. Being unable to view the larger picture and the overall process misses the point. It's not the link alone that has value or the story alone that has value, but the overall process of building a community.
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Filed Under: aggregators, community, journalism, link economy, links, news, traffic
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Exactly
The point Mike makes in this post is exactly what the AP, etc. don't seem to grasp. I dare say this is one of the best posts I've read here simply because it so clearly explains the linking culture mentallity.
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Simple chain, but the link itself wasn't the value; it was the connection, and all that implies.
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I got your link...
It wasnt the fact that google linked to you. They linked to alot of sites.
It was that I saw your content, and knew I wanted to keep up with it.
The initial exposure was important. But of far greater importance was the inherent value of your site.
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Re: I got your link...
Found it, loved it, been following it and getting the daily email ever since.
I've looked at a lot of blogs, but as far as I'm concerned TechDirt is the best of the bunch.
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Re: I got your link...
Being able to read the articles and comment without ever needing an account is great too. I hate doing that, I just stop using a site if it requires me to register an account for anything I do.
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Following the logic through..
In all these cases, you're *giving away* some of your value without being compensated for it. And only a tiny minority of those who view your ads, or your Yellow Pages listing, or the preview, or the paper, will actually end up being customers. Those aggregators owe you for that!
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hard work
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True, with conditions
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Re: True, with conditions
I don't see what's wrong with what Thoma is doing. It's a great way to introduce people to the sources he reads, and if people consistently like some of them, they're likely to then go and start following them directly.
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why not??...
why don't sites simply check WHERE the person came from....and as well as showing the main story, they can link to other relevant stories they also have, thus keeping visitors on their own site?
i.e. if you just came from techdirt, make sure to have plenty of copyright/legal type things to visit...if you came from fark.com make sure you have weird/freaky news stories at the side, even though the MAIN story remains the same....
What news sites fail to grasp is that you can have the same story, but surrounded with completely different (contextual) information based on the user...and no I don't mean ads....
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How I found Techdirt
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Re: How I found Techdirt
It's been long enough ago that I don't remember what site linked me to Techdirt, and I may not even read that particular site any longer, but I read Techdirt every day.
I read through many of the posts on places such as Wired and Gizmodo most days as well, and follow the link in those stories. However, it is rare that I'll go back to any of those linked sites unless I find what the site offers compelling to me beyond that one story. If I do find that I'm consistently going back to a particular site, I bookmark it or grab the RSS feed and go to that site first before I head to any of the aggregator type sites.
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