Tips for Creating Good Links

Created by Margie Wylie-Petruzziello, Modified on Mon, 4 Nov at 12:27 PM by Margie Wylie-Petruzziello

Links are signposts to both search engines and users. Thoughtful and well-written links make content more accessible, usable, and searchable. At the same time, superfluous, redundant, or vague links can push down our results in search engine rankings and hurt the overall accessibility and usability of our websites.

In Brief

Use descriptive link text that makes sense when read alone.
Don't link bare URLs.
Prefer internal to external links.
Use "link to a page-->on this website" from the link menu to ensure that internal links don't break if the page moves.
Avoid redundant and numerous links. (Ask: Is this link essential?)
Avoid unstable, unreliable, and/or perishable sources.
Where perishable links are unavoidable, remove or edit the perishable link after it is no longer valid or useful.

*Can the user find this information with a Google Search? Don’t include it.

To Link or Not to Link?

The first consideration for good links is whether those links should exist at all.

Does the link add anything the reader could not easily find with a casual search?
Is the source you are linking to reputable?
Does it support your main narrative? Or could it lead your reader down a rabbit hole?
Is it redundant? (Every page on our websites link to the home page of Berkeley Lab, so a repeated link in your content is redundant.)
Does it point to a stable, non-perishable source, like a DOI (digital object identifier)?
Is it absolutely necessary?

Writing Link Text

In the simplest terms link text should

Describe the destination as completely yet succinctly as possible,
Be self-contained, able to be read independently and understood, and
Not be “click here," "here," "this," or any other uninformative text.

Like fully-sighted readers, users who rely on screen readers “scan” web pages using landmarks, including headings and link text.

To test how readable your page will be, try reading your links out loud. If you could not see anything else on the page, would the link text alone be useful? Imagine if you landed on a page where all the links were “click here” or “this.”

(Want to know more? Read more about how to write good links.)

Links and SEO

Search engines usually weigh link text more heavily in indexing the page. Text that reinforces the main idea of your page generally moves it up in ranking. However, “link-larding,” that is using an unnecessary number of embedded and/or redundant links, can cause search engines to treat the page with suspicion.

Checklist

Absolutely necessary.
Unique on the page (no repeats).
Well-written (Is NOT any of the following: link click, click here, this, more, or non-descriptive text.)
The source is reputable and stable.
Internal links only: Linked by page number using the pulldown menu in the rich text editor.