The "Where Did My Hyperlinked Content Go?" Syndrome
I noticed recently that a lot of past links in some of our older posts are no longer good. When I see that's happened, I try to update them as much as I can, including with my posts. I got to thinking that it might be a good idea for us to start copying and pasting original hyperlinked text whenever we can, rather than just referring people to the info by linking to it in our posts. This is just a thought I had this morning, not saying it should be some kind of rule, or something. Just food for thought, and here's why:
I noticed that with some of my no longer good hyperlinks, I could still find the info on the original website, it was just moved. I think this is because a lot of times people are just re-organizing their websites, and archiving their content to a different part of the website. Or, they may have changed their navigation tabs (this happens a lot), and that 's why the page has a new url. Whatever the case, this means you may have to click around that site, look for the original content you hyperlinked, copy the new address, then go back into your EUTM post and replace the old website address. [sigh]
Here’s another thing I’ve noticed that happens in some instances (usually with the larger news source agencies whose articles we may link to in our posts): the site will avail the content to the public for free for a limited time, a week, say, or 30 days, whatever. Then, when that time is up, they’ll charge the public money to read that info. You have to “join” their site, give them your credit card info, and pay to read the info. [sigh]
So, basically it doesn’t matter the reason. Either way we lose content, and the reader won’t get the full story of what we were trying to say in our original posts because the link to our “supporting info” is no longer good.
Reformatting Copied Text
Therefore, and this is just a thought (I'm not saying people should have to do this), but it may be a good idea if, going forward, we try to do more copying and pasting in our posts, rather than just linking. Notice I said “try” …I know if I’m in a hurry, I just have time to supply a link, and I will try to remember to copy and paste later.
I find copying and pasting pretty tedious and time-consuming because a lot of times I have to copy the text into Notepad first, in order to knock out all the formatting from the source website (otherwise, the text will come out all loopy-looking in my post on this site). I reformat the text such as add/delete “returns,” or put bolding and italics back in the text to make it easier to read, etc..
Pictures
And here's some added tedium. While doing the Notepad thing might be good for the text, it is not good for the photos that were included in the original article. It makes them all go away, so you have to add them to your new EUTM post. Yet another step to do: if I think the pics were important for the story (or I like them, just because), then I gotta’ down-load them, then upload them to the new EUTM post. Some pics need to be uploaded to a 3rd party site like Picassa, then that link added here to display the pic.
But here again, what if something happens to the pic at the 3rd party site? A lot of cool pics are gone after a while, like in this post: http://everythingunderthemoon.net/forum ... ml#p181238, or this one also on that thread: http://everythingunderthemoon.net/forum ... ml#p181298 (is this just a Photobucket glitch?) I liked those nature pics.
Well, that's why I made sure to upload my willy peppers in this article, rather than 3rd party them: http://everythingunderthemoon.net/forum ... 25454.html. See, I didn't want my willy peppers disappearing on me. Anywhoo, as though it's not headache enough to copy, reformat and paste text, maybe the best thing to do for pics is not use a 3rd party, but use the “Attachment” function (at the bottom of the edit screen when you’re writing your post), and upload the pic directly.
Phew. Just writing about this is making me (mentally) tired, haha but it was on my mind recently when looking at older posts. So, I thought I’d mention it. Bottom line, it seems that if you think the link(s) you’ve included in your post are really important to your make your point (or you just like what is at the linked site, just because), you might think about copying and pasting the original content, and/or upload the photos, from the linked site. From what I’ve seen, there’s a possibility that your linked urls may just go bye bye.
Would welcome your comments on any of the above, anybody.
Thanks.
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Or, maybe some site owners don't know any better, I don't know. It's so easy to create websites now, anyone could do it.