Links: golden

Linking out in practice

This is the BBC's policy for its related internet links box:

Make more of related internet links

• No longer just homepages
• Deep link to directly relevant webpages
• Think further reading and adding value: Analysis, comment, academia, reports, blogs - stuff you see and use when writing story.

But here are some typical examples from yesterday.

AOL buys Huffington post. Related internet links section? To the AOL and Huffington Post homepage. How do these fit the criteria above?

Or Axe public sector union rights says IoD. Related internet links: IoD and TUC homepages.

A story about eliminating car crashes, extensively quoting experts in the field: No related links.

Or what about this story from last month - Most speed cameras "not working" based on a Which? story. Is there a link from the BBC to the primary source of that story on the Which? site? No. Does it even link to the Which? website? No. Instead it links to Brake, Safe Speed and the RAC foundation in the Related Internet Links section. These organisations aren't even mentioned in the news story.

Or this blog post about The Daily with no links in it?

There's also clearly some sort of roster of links in some cases. The complained-about supposedly-paid links (to sites about watching sport online) in my previous post appear on a lot of pages as this Google search shows. They're clearly the default list to add. Yet those links aren't ideal. Why doesn't the BBC link to genuinely useful pages on, say, ITV or Sky which do show sport online? It's a public service broadcaster - I'm not interested in its unwillingness to promote competitors. Linking instead to affiliate-income-earning low quality, 3rd-party aggregation sites is not the BBC living up to its own high standards.

What it should be doing

The BBC has promised to do more to link out - doing so is now part of the BBC's online strategy:

[The BBC has] pledged to “turn the site into a window on the web” by providing at least one external link on every page and doubling monthly ‘click-throughs’ to external sites: “making the best of what is available elsewhere online an integral part of the BBC’s offer to audiences”.

Yet there is confusion, I would say, both within and externally to the BBC.

At ProSEO this year (scroll down to the mention) Russell Smith from the BBC, mentioned the BBC's commitment to "doubling outbound links" (actually it's outbound clickthroughs but whatever).

The SEOs present nearly fell over themselves with excitement - although I tweeted a warning that "whatever he says, BBC favours big brands when it comes to linking out from news stories. Don't hold your breaths ..."

The BBC's original policy for its external links section is still live, here. This is the automated Moreover system it uses to automatically add relevant links - note that there are only 4,000 sites in that feed.

In October 2010, the BBC's new guidelines for external linking were published, which is where the "make more of related internet links" guidelines above are from.

I do think the BBC deserves a lot of credit for these guidelines.

Most people fail to appreciate how CMSes, workflows, organisational culture and internal targets make it extremely difficult to link out (some useful posts about the Guardian's approach here and here, for instance).

Yet when looked at in practice, I'm less impressed with the BBC's approach.

So what's going on? Maybe on the ground, journalists are taking the easy way out. They know they've got to fill in that "related internet links" section as a box ticking exercise. So they stick the links in to the same old home pages, regardless of whether they are specifically relevant, just so they can say they've done it.

They can get it right when they try. On this story on the Bing Google spat, the related internet links are to specific blog posts on Google, Bing and Search Engine Land.

Conclusion

The BBC should be applauded for its approach. But it's not yet living up to its stated aim of linking out more to directly relevant sites in a fair way. As a public service broadcaster, it should set, and be held up to, the highest standards. On this issue of fairly linking to external sites (not that it's alone), it's not yet succeeding.

Photo credit.

The Editor of BBC Sport emphatically denied this was true. I believe him - there's no chance that the BBC is doing this officially. But:

• Why were so many people quick to believe this?
• Why do so many SEOs think you can buy a link off the BBC website? And
• Even worse - why isn't the BBC's external linking policy having enough of an effect? I examine that issue in a second post.

What's the accusation - and what's the problem?

Google counts links to a webpage as a measure of its importance. The more links a page has from other sites, the more important it seems to Google - so the higher up Google's results it appears.

There's a black economy in paid links - paying people to link to artifically boost a site's importance in Google's eyes. It's not unlawful - but the practice treats ordinary web users with contempt (they think the links are naturally added) and isn't something the BBC should be doing.

Readers of this blog will recall my various posts on paid links on newspapers. I no longer out these (not least as they're usually leased on a short-term basis these days - although if you're stupid enough to list them all, it's hard to resist the temptation).

Anyway, the suggestion was that the BBC's TV & radio page included links that shouldn't be there - unless someone had paid for them to be there.

What do paid links look like?

It's usually easy to spot a paid link. Some of the key characteristics are:

• The anchor text (the text that's made into the link) uses the search terms that the linked-to site wants to rank to (as opposed to the site's name, "click here", or some general text).
• The links aren't obvious - they're there, but they're not flagged in any way and may be slipped in next to some non-paid links.
• Often the pages linked to look a bit, well, crap.
• It's not clear why those links are there - and not some more obvious ones.

The links in question on the BBC fitted all these characteristics. They used anchor text like "watch sport online" but linked to domains like www.getsport.tv. They were interleaved in other links to pages on the BBC site. They linked to some pretty odd looking sites. And if you're going to link to sites about watching sport online, why not link to Sky, ITV, Virgin etc directly?

What did the BBC say?

The BBC was unequivocal in its response. Lewis Wiltshire, BBC Sport website editor, left a response on the original blog saying:

None of the links to external websites from the BBC’s UK-facing website are sold [Comment by me: Interesting caveat!]. All of them are editorially selected because we believe they offer useful onward reading for our audience.

We are certainly not attempting to hoodwink Google, or any other search engines, or our audience, and I would be grateful to you for clarifying that issue.

He followed up that comment by saying about the links in question:

The links were editorially selected a while back. That page is a TV & Radio Schedule page so, in accordance with our objectives for linking out, we featured websites that offered schedule information for a range of broadcasters.

In order to be as fair as possible to the market, we linked to a range of them. One of those links was clumsily worded, and appears to have ended up going to a 404 – we’ve deleted that now.

Following this, the BBC page in question was amended to make the links clearer and to remove the broken link (which was actually only broken because someone had left the http off the front - CMSes FTW) .

Before ... and after

Why do people think the BBC is selling links?

Even without Lewis's intervention, there is no way that the BBC is officially selling links to influence Google's results.

But rogue employees can be a problem. When I was editor of Which?, we had a massive manual migration exercise (ie copying and pasting 10s of 000s of pages) for a new CMS. One of the temps doing it dumped a load of links to his MP3 download site onto our pages ...

And there are SEOs on Twitter who think that individuals at the BBC will, in exchange for money, add links to your website. Gavin Mitchell pointed me to http://twitpic.com/1wpawe - a screenshot showing a keyword-rich anchor link on a BBC news story - now not visible on the page.

He wasn't the only person suggesting some admins at the BBC could - if not now then in the past - be paid to include a link for SEO reasons.

Conclusion

The BBC is not selling links. Are some people inside the organisation? I don't know. Today's story doesn't show this one way or the other.

This is all a side show, though. As I argue in my next post, the BBC is not living up to its stated aim of linking out more to directly relevant sites in a fair way.

"I would like to know how much money the BBC has spent on Internet marketing from 2009-2010:

1. Which Internet marketing methods do the BBC currently use? (e.g SEO, PPC, etc)
2. How much has been spent on each of these methods between 2009 - 2010?

The BBC replied that:

Most of the BBC's digital marketing activity is delivered at little or no direct cost. Examples of this include:

• Twitter feeds
• Reflecting Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) principles in the design of our web pages
• Marketing messages on our own site which assist user navigation

But there are some things it pays for:

Occasionally, we use paid-for digital marketing inventory where it is especially able to reach particular discrete groups - eg youth audiences, or children. The two principal forms of paid-for marketing we use in the digital space are paid search marketing, and digital display advertising (ie, banners, buttons, Media Placement Units). In 2009/10, the BBC's Marketing department spent:

• c. £1.4m on digital display advertising
• c. £220k on paid search marketing

There may also be small amounts of "digital marketing spend across the BBC which are funded by the individual production areas."

Interesting that the BBC doesn't appear, therefore, to employ any sort of SEO firm.

Last December, I pointed out that:

Shownar is a BBC site that tracks online buzz about BBC shows. Despite being paid for by the licence fee, it's pulling the wool over bloggers' eyes by claiming that, if you link to it, it will link back - but it's nofollowing the links.

The BBC replied that:

Shownar will be retired in a few weeks. The good news is the version we are creating for bbc.co.uk is going to be backed by the moderation support that means we should be able to remove nofollows for those non-commerical blog posts that are significantly about a BBC programme.

The old Shownar

It's now followed through on that with its about to go live Buzz service, explained here (cheers to Martin Belam for the spot):

We've built a tool that finds where on blogs, Twitter and other online communities people are discussing BBC programmes, and presents links to them on the relevant programme page.

If people are talking about a programme, a section called 'Buzz about this programme' appears on its programme page. Clicking on the links in that section will take you to online conversations about that programme.

As to how the links work, that's explained here - the bit about nofollow reads:

We use an automated system to find our blog links which means if you link to a BBC programme page and your blog passes our external link guidelines we will usually link to it. This opens us up to possible abuse with people linking to us just to boost their page's search positioning. To counter this we add a nofollow tag to pages we've looked at and decided are not fully relevant within the context of the programme (find out how we judge relevancy here). We don't put this restriction on relevant posts, so if the post is very much about the programme and not trying to gain search positioning it does get the authority from us.

Please note we only check blog post relevancy during office hours and it may take a while to get through any backlogs that have built up. So if your blog is recent, relevant and has the nofollow tag it may just because we've not checked it yet.

Anyway (1) well done the BBC (this presumably counts as part of its promise to double monthly clickthroughs to external sites) and (2) I must go and write about some BBC programmes (don't forget this tip to get links from the BBC to your Twitter page) ...

As far as I can tell, the new service isn't live yet as I can't find it anywhere on the BBC site. Let me know if you spot it ...

Why not tell us what you think of today's programme by joining the conversation on Twitter.

Dragons' Den

I'm not sure it looks like much of a conversation, though ...

This is what the Dragons' Den Twitter account looks like an hour after the programme finished:

Dragons Den tweets - no conversation

Leaving aside the hashtag confusion, they don't seem to have actually replied to anyone's tweets. A blanket "thank you" to people for their comments doesn't quite seem the same as the "conversation" promised in the programme itself.

I'm sure it's hard to implement a mobile version of a website - with ITV's mobile site particularly demonstrating why they're often rubbish.

But I expected rather more of the BBC and the Guardian. In fact, if you've been using their mobile sites for the last few days, you'd have been under the impression that there has been little news about the election to report...

The Guardian

Here's the Guardian's mobile version tonight - no mention of Gordon Brown quitting.

Guardian: no sign of resigning PMs

And here's its web version - leading with the news.

Guardian web: Brown's resigned

The BBC

Here's the BBC mobile site on Sunday morning - literally no mention of the election whatsoever. It's been like this for days...

BBC mobile: any election news?

And here's the web version of its news pages at the same time. Oh, there's an election.

BBC web: there's an election!

And tonight, again, there is no mention of the election and no mention of Brown's resignation on the mobile version of the BBC's news pages:

Brown has resigned, I'm sure ...

Back to the drawing board, please.

Express thinks following means follower.

It appears the Express has confused following and follower numbers.

Ha ha ha ha ha.

Here's what they said:

The BBC Radio 2 site, which gathers messages, or “tweets”, from presenters such as Chris Evans, Jonathan Ross and Alan Carr, has no followers.

The BBC Radio 5 Live site, run by presenter Victoria Derbyshire, has just two.

Did they mean these accounts:

• http://twitter.com/onradio2now: 536 followers, but following 1 person
• http://twitter.com/vicderbyshire (Victoria Derbyshire): 3,639 followers, following 2 people.

Yes, they surely did. I wrote this morning that:

it makes it look like you don't know what you're talking about.

The original story. Clowns.

And they certainly don't.

Original: Read this: http://www.dailyexpress.co.uk/posts/view/152233/Is-the-BBC-run-by-a-bunch-of-Twitters-

The BBC Radio 2 site, which gathers messages, or “tweets”, from presenters such as Chris Evans, Jonathan Ross and Alan Carr, has no followers.

The BBC Radio 5 Live site, run by presenter Victoria Derbyshire, has just two.

Then look at:

• http://twitter.com/BBC_Radio_2: 12,000+ followers
• http://twitter.com/BBC5LIVE: 14,000+ followers.

Looks like the Express looked at the wrong accounts. Also, please don't refer to Twitter accounts as sites, as it makes it look like you don't know what you're talking about.

Oh, right.

The BBC runs minute-by-minute text commentaries online for most Premier League and international matches. As part of this, they occasionally print comments that people tweets. When they do, they link to the URL of the person who tweeted.

First example

Last night, for instance, you can see that Caroline Cheese was writing the page, reporting on goalflashes and major incidents (her name is at the top, above the last timestamp). Look down the page, and you can see two tweets that she's included.

Here's a screenshot of the link on the BBC page (the blue copy is a link to peg_leg5125's Twitter URL):

Link from BBC to someone's Twitter

Second example

Here's last saturday's live report, which featured seven tweets, each with a link to the tweeter's main twitter URL. The report author was Jonathan Stevenson, and he'd handily included his twitter address at the bottom of the page. Here's a sample tweet quoted on the BBC page (again, the blue text is a link):

More tweets used by the BBC - with a link

Conclusion

These links are followed. Obviously they aren't going to print any old spam or rubbish. So don't bother trying to game them.

But if you've genuinely got something interesting to say, why not tweet the author of the BBC report and see if you can get a link.

Update from 13 December 2009: And here's my link!

Result!

GOOOAAAAALL!

The news stories Google shows

Anyone turning to Google to look into the issue is unlikely to be reassured. Although the results are generated algorithmically, Google's results are anti-jab. There is very little in the way of balance in the results, with a mixture of old and new scare stories, and only a couple of positive stories.

[I'm not suggesting Google should be fixing its results - the fault lies with the media for its slant on the story and the way that the negative fears are given more weight than the follow up stories which find no evidence of a link]

According to Google Insights, the most commonly searched-for term is 'Cervical cancer jab' with a 7 fold increase from the weekend to Tuesday (the latest day for which Google gives figures).

What Google's showing

Search for 'cervical cancer jab' today, Thursday, and you see:

News results at the top

• Facts behind school cervical cancer jab? The death this week of 14-year-old schoolgirl Natalie Morton just hours after receiving the cervical cancer jab sent shockwaves around the ... [The Sun]
• Cervical cancer jab is 'harming a generation' says mum [Mirror.co.uk]
• Dr Richard Halvorsen: I'm not opposed to jabs but there are serious worries [Daily Mail]

The first story is a short, cursory Q&A which doesn't help much.

The second news result is a scare story linking the vaccination to paralysis with no evidence.

The third one is a Daily Mail anti-vaccine story with little basis in fact, and which hasn't been updated in the light of evidence that the vaccination didn't cause the girl's death.

Web results

Under the news results are the web ones. Here are the top 10 (I've shown the headline, any date Google shows and the source).

• How safe is the cervical cancer jab? Five teenagers reveal their alarming stories - 5 Apr 2009 - Daily Mail
• Revealed: The serious health concerns about the cervical cancer jab - 2 Sep 2008 - Daily Mail
• Girl dies after cervical cancer jab - Yahoo! News UK
• Cancer jab alert after girl dies - 29 Sep 2009 - BBC news
• Cervical cancer jab 'in a year' - 7 Oct 2005 - BBC news
• Schoolgirl dies after being given cervical cancer jab - 29 Sep 2009 - Times
• Mystery illness paralyses girl given cervical cancer jab - 14 Dec 2008 - Times
• Two girls die after cervical cancer jab - 25 Jan 2008 - Telegraph
• Cervical cancer vaccinations postponed - 29 Sep 2009 - Guardian
• Most mums want cervical cancer jabs for their daughters - 24 Jan 2007 - Cancer Research UK

Anyone responsible for the vaccination program, or who is concerned about cancer deaths, must be in despair at this. Faced with this choice of things to read, it's no surprise that many of the comments on newspaper sites are from parents saying they are pulling their daughters out of the program.

NHS advert

The NHS is attempting to provide some balance with a paid-for advert at the top of the page. But the copy is too generic to encourage that many clickthroughs.

Cervical Cancer Jab
www.nhs.uk/HPV For more information on the HPV jab Visit the official NHS site here.

I suspect many people won't trust the official site, and the ad doesn't address the current scare.

If you are covering this story, try to provide a link the NHS site. Maybe with a bit of SEO we can get the NHS page in the top 10 results ...