Inline Linking Bad for Usability
Posted on May 23rd, 2006by Michael Gray in Ideas, SEO
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As SEO’s we’ve all been “trained” to think that “inline links” (those within the normal flow of sentences and paragraphs) are the best kind of links to have. Inline links clearly provide a wider variety of surrounding text, and they are more “natural looking” (whatever that means) to search engines. However are inline links really better for the users, lets take a look below the surface and find out.
I’m not sure which came first but there’s probably a bit of a chicken and egg relationship between link based search engine algorithms and the W3c “don’t click here web specification. However the real question is, are wikipedia style links really beneficial to users and do they help the user experience, or are they really for the benefit of search engines? For a link based algorthym like Google’s, using cleanly focused anchor text can really work wonders for improving search relevancy. In the eyes of a search engine using brown bear does a much better job at conveying what I think the content on the other end of the link is about, as opposed to the following anchor text, what I saw on my last camping trip. I’m all for improving relevancy and I’ll continue to do my part focusing my anchor text, and I encourage you to do the same. However when you read is it better or even normal to stop what you’re doing follow the link and come back to where you left off? If I’m reading something and come across a new word if it’s important to comprehending the article I’ll go look the word up right away otherwise I wait till I’m done, highlight the word, right click and use my “search web for” link in the dialog box. The same thing for inline links if I come across a link I want to read I CTRL+CLICK the link to open in an background tab, and read the next page when I’m done, it’s just easier to concentrate that way. Lets look at following example:
There are four different bear species in North America. The largest of these species of the Alaskan brown bear and grizzly bear. The polar bear is also a large species that is somewhat smaller and shorter followed by the black bear.
Now chances are you understood that paragraph and had an idea where the hyperlinked text would take you, but compare it to this example:
There are four different bear species in North America. The largest of these species of the Alaskan brown bear and grizzly bear. The polar bear is also a large species that is somewhat smaller and shorter followed by the black bear.
Additional Bear Resources
I think the second example is not only clearer and easier to understand, but in addition much more use able than the first. I was able to read through the paragraph, gets it meaning without worrying I was missing something, and at the end I was presented with a series of links to further explore the topic. The anchor text for the links was the title for each of the pages (I eliminated one word from the last link if you want to be technical) but from users standpoint I still think the bottom style of linking the whole sentence “works better”. If we try focusing the anchor text to help the engines I don’t think the end result is more desirable:
Grizzly Bear - National Wildlife Federation
or
I think this is clearly a case of search engine implementation and ranking algorithms having a negative affect on the end user experience an usability.
Sphere: Related Content
May 23rd, 2006 at 7:46 am
Oddly enough, I found the first example easier to read - you had pulled out all the key words and highlighted them for me, so I could see the points of the paragraph very, very easily.
In contrast, the second block was a bland stretch of words I couldn’t convince my eyes to read. And as for that boring list of links at the bottom! I don’t think I even glanced at them!
OK, so your link density was probably a bit higher than your average paragraph, so I don’t think its a fair test, but I do like inline links - but using background tabs for opening links may make the difference.
May 23rd, 2006 at 10:48 am
This is one of these commonly held SEO beliefs that doesn’t hold up to much scrutiny. In fact, almost none of them do.
Nice post and keep up the great work.
May 23rd, 2006 at 2:53 pm
I’m with you on that one Graywolf. The problem I also have with the inline linking is sometimes I lose focus of reading the post by wanting to click on the on the hi-lited links. I have a short attention span I guess
May 23rd, 2006 at 3:39 pm
Dude, please remove the damn navy background in this blog, it is very slow loading and I can’t see any text while I wait. Make sense? The time period is long enough to lose a few visitors you know?
You blog evangelists have to focus more on usability.
Repeat after me:
Usability first, educating the minions second.
Relax Lee, it was a joke! ;-0
May 23rd, 2006 at 6:25 pm
I agree, the background is distracting, and makes the page take ages to load. Please remove it. The content looks good, but the presentation means I probably won’t be back.
May 23rd, 2006 at 10:20 pm
I agree that inline links are distracting, especially when used as a “Click to get the definition” kind. I understand they are helpful, but at what risk?
Anyway, the best inline links are call to action ones that take the reader to something productive during the moment they are thinking about it. Weigh the purpose of the link. Is it for conversions or just more information?
The second set of links offers a reason to click. The added information creates confidence in where one would go if they click and the type of information they would find if they do. The first example, which is more commonly used, is also the most mysterious for the reader. It’s guesswork where they will land if they click.
The third one has nothing in there to persuade me to click.
Title attributes sometimes help create a stronger impulse to click an inline link because they offer incentives due to their descriptive nature.
May 24th, 2006 at 2:20 pm
[...] That’s why it came as a little surprise to see a blog post on Gray Wolf’s site titled Inline Linking Bad for Usability. [...]
May 24th, 2006 at 4:25 pm
I can see your point, but I feel that contextual links can provide a great benefit for users of screen readers - it seems to me that the accessibility advantages of inline linking, providing immediate access to additional information , is of great use for alternative devices which can less easily navigate through large blocks of text.
Granted, your suggestion can be effective provided that approriate internal page navigation is provided, but I still have to say I prefer well-written inline linking. (Note, of course, that small key modifier. )
May 25th, 2006 at 11:47 am
[...] Inline Linking Bad for Usability [...]
May 26th, 2006 at 4:58 am
[...] Inline Linking Bad for Usability SEO people love inline linking, but do users? An interesting read (tags: link usability interactiondesign) Share or Save this post:These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages. [...]
May 26th, 2006 at 11:39 am
I too prefer the inline linked version, mainly due to the reasons listed in the first comment. Also, a list of links loses the contextuality of the inline links, and makes the links seem more supplemental. Might work for a text that is written as a standalone, offline, linear piece, with the necessary definitions etc. embedded in the text but not for text where you are supposed to visit the links to get the whole story.
Using the title attribute to provide a tooltip might help, but I don’t know how many hover long enough before clicking to see the tooltip.
May 29th, 2006 at 3:27 am
Another quick way to look up a word you don’t know, is to download and use the 1-click Andwers that enables you to alt-click a word and a small bubble will appear with information about the word.
to download it:
http://www.answers.com/main/product_info.jsp
February 19th, 2007 at 9:22 pm
[...] resource for site visitors. I recently read two articles concerning this subject - the first, at Wolf-Howl questions the practice of inline linking as being bad for usability. The second, by Bill Slawski, [...]
July 31st, 2007 at 6:00 pm
The 2nd paragraph adds 31 words. The roughly doubles the word count by adding links to the bottom. This adds significant cost if your text is being localized. It also roughly doubles the visual space used.
I agree with the first comment posted, that in-line links highly the key terms of a particular sentence or paragraph, so I can briefly understand what that chunk is about.