Ok, this ones been bubbling for some time now but today it’s boiled over. I’ve had it with news sites which (missing the point of the internet entirely) fail to provide inline links to relevant websites.

This is something I first noted over at the BBC. They write a piece which mentions a web site like Digg but rather than link to it inline, they put a link to the website over in a column on the right. This is a pain in the back side, it flies in the face of common sense and just infuriates the user.

Even worse though is the treatment of URLs within articles by Brand Republic. Not only do they fail to link to a publishers website within the body text but they even directly print a URL without making it clickable. This is nothing short of a complete disregard for the audience.

Why would I continue to use websites like the BBC and Brand Republic when the service they provide to the user can’t even embrace the most basic fundamentals of the web?

I can only imagine that this behaviour is dictated because the news provider in question feels that providing users with easy to access links ‘out’ to relevant information will somehow diminish their traffic.

This couldn’t be further from the truth. Make it easy for your users to ‘get at’ the information they’re after by placing it inline and they will feel that your website is more useful, relevant and worth revisiting. It’s not rocket science.

So, again I ask: Why is no one linking?