External Links

[StuartDH]

Wild About Britain aims to promote wildlife and the environment across the British Isles. One of the ways of doing this is by allowing links on the website, so that members and visitors can find out about other websites. While this is obviously very important to help spreading news and information, we also need to ensure that this facility isn’t abused.

At present, WAB enables members who have made a minimum of 25 posts in the forum to display a link to their own non-commercial wildlife or environment related site in a variety of ways. An increasing number of members now have their own sites and naturally would like to increase traffic to those sites. As a charity, we don't want the site turning into a free-for-all of commercial activity, but we’d like to hear your opinions on whether or not you think we’re doing enough to promote external sites and allow members to share their interests in more detail.

On the one hand we want to promote wildlife and the environment around the UK, but we also want to make sure we’re not being spammed etc. To this end, please could you take a look over the following to give us some idea of where you think we should draw the line.

A. Should we allow links from... (Note: We currently allow 1&2, and occasionally 3)

1. Only non-commercial wildlife and environment sites
2. Members who run ads on their site
3. Members who sell a few products/services
4. Companies promoting their products or services


B. Which of the following should we allow for external links...(Note: We allow 1-4 already)

1. One link in the member’s signature
2. A link in the member’s profile page
3. A photo link and short description in the link pages
4. A very occasional post about their site when it can’t be avoided
5. Short intro posts in the forum that just mention/promote a member's site even though it doesn't add much content to the thread
6. Allow members to make as many posts about their site as they like, i.e. 20+ a day


C. If the link to the external site is non-commercial today then gets lots of hits and the member decides to make it commercial later on, should we...(Note: We currently do a mix of 1&2)

1. Keep all their previous links
2. Remove all of their previous links – possibly hundreds and very time consuming if they’re in lots of posts
3. Ban the member from WAB for spamming the site


D. Wild About Britain gets well over half a million unique visitors a year and could easily double this in the next few months. We have the potential to run a lot of traffic through the site to external links, and we'll probably send a lot more traffic out to external links than we'll ever receive back. As a result, do you think that Wild About Britain, as a charity, should aim to be better rewarded for promoting external sites by...(Note: We currently do number 1)

1. Doing nothing
2. Insist on a link back from the external site
3. Insist on a donation or subscription fee for all external links that aren't strictly non-profit organisations

We can't guarantee that we'll change the existing rules, if only because we won't do anything that creates a lot more work for the mods, but we'd be really interested to hear your opinions and/or solutions. As always, moderators will still be able to exercise a degree of leniency, and make allowances for special circumstances that they feel are of particular benefit to the site, members, wildlife and the environment or the charity.

Stu

[DaiTheDragon]

A. 1. Only non-commercial wildlife and environment sites

B. 1. One link in the member’s signature
2. A link in the member’s profile page

C. 4. Ban any futer links

D. 2. Insist on a link back from the external site

It might also be a good idea if a moderator or members could rate the external sight in some way.

Dai

[Tormentil]

A. 2. Some members may use one of these "free" photo hosting sites and may not have any say or control on adverts.

[StuartDH]

Thanks for the comments guys, it'd be great to hear from lots of other members too about the best way to tackle links

A few days ago I removed over 60 references/links where one our members has been continually recommending a site at every opportunity...it was the exit page to an average 140 of our visitors each day. In most cases the content could be found on WAB and there was no need to go external, or it could be found through the content-relevant ads (which would have translated to at least £7 a day in income).

I've installed and started trialing a links system on Wildlife and Environment Directory and if it's any good then this might end up being a solution on WAB. It allows links to be rated, and they also have to be reciprocal

Stu

[goosey]

A 1. Only non-commercial wildlife and environment sites

B 1. One link in the member’s signature
+ 2. A link in the member’s profile page

C ? Perhaps leave existing links pre-commercialised, but ask for a donation for the new ones to be included on WAB ie. as a signature.

D 2. Insist on a link back from the external site


I have had a lot of hits on my website via WAB, which is great for my pride especially any nice comments I get. Mine is a non comercial site and I have soul descretion what goes on and doesn't. WAB is mentioned frequently and I thank members who have helped with ID's etc. I hope you have had some new members and hits as a result from this. I have never thought as it as a way of free advertising until I saw this thread, but now I am aware will do the same as a few others here and add the WAB banner to my links page this weekend, the link has been there since January.

[agrumpycow]

A - 1 Only non-commercial wildlife and environment sites

B - 2 A link in the member’s profile page

C - 1 and ban on future links

D - 2 and 3

Stu - did you have any idea that when you first began WAB that it would become so popular that this was necessary!

[almostnormal]

A. Should we allow links from...

1. Only non-commercial wildlife and environment sites
2. Members who run ads on their site - as someone's previously mentioned if its a photo album site the member might not have any say on the ads running on it.

B. Which of the following should we allow for external links...

1. One link in the member’s signature
2. A link in the member’s profile page
3. A photo link and short description in the link pages
4. A very occasional post about their site when it can’t be avoided

C. If the link to the external site is non-commercial today then gets lots of hits and the member decides to make it commercial later on, should we...

1. Keep all their previous links

D. Wild About Britain gets well over half a million unique visitors a year and could easily double this in the next few months. We have the potential to run a lot of traffic through the site to external links, and we'll probably send a lot more traffic out to external links than we'll ever receive back. As a result, do you think that Wild About Britain, as a charity, should aim to be better rewarded for promoting external sites by...

2. Insist on a link back from the external site - at least that way more peope will come into contact with WAB.

[pressld2]

A:
1. Only non-commercial wildlife and environment sites

B:
1. One link in the member’s signature
2. A link in the member’s profile page

C:
I was going to say 1. Keep all their previous links to keep the work down for the mods but after reading your second post I would say take the pragmatic approach - leave them wherever possible but if WAB is haemorrhaging visitors through them and losing money then either remove them or ask for referral fees.

D:
2. Insist on a link back from the external site
And if it's easy and painless to monitor the through traffic to that link then consider asking for referal fees when traffic crosses a certain threshold, i.e 100 per day.

Dave P.

[eeyore]

A. 1&2, and 3 only at admin/mod discretion. 4 type links to be allowed where they are put up by established (ie 25 posts plus) members for info or to andswer a question - again at mod discretion

B. 1-4 as presently and 6 only if the intro actually adds something to the site which couldnt be easily held internally (as with the wainwright walks photo essays we saw recently)

C. a pragmatic approach based on who , how much traffic , and what the external site is

D. a link back in every case - and a donation / subscription from any comercial site where the link is posted by that sites owners

[galanthus]

A 1 Only non-commercial wildlife and environment sites

B 1 to 4 .

C Hmmm not sure

D 2 and 3