How To Make Sure No One Clicks On Your Links

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May 9, 2006

There’s a new keyword based RSS search engine, researchbuzz, and I wanted to submit my blog. So I went to their URL, and found the “Submit your site” link prominently placed in the left nav bar. I read all the instructions and then thought, “Now where do I submit?”

So I went back and read all the instructions again, and realized that there was an alternative site one had to use, and they hadn’t even hyperlinked to it:

Feel free to send information about your site to sitesubmit-at-researchbuzz.com

OK, I thought, clicks are precious and they don’t get it, but let’s get listed and get moving. So I cut and pasted the URL into my Firefox browser (which insisted on adding the www) and got page not found. I tried taking out the w’s, but nothing. Maybe it doesn’t work on Firefox, I thought, so I pulled out IE, tried it again, and still, page not found.

So it’s obvious how to make sure no one clicks on your links: Don’t hyperlink, and be sure that when you include them in text format, they are wrong.

Of course, it is possible that they really don’t want to get submissions, they just want the verisimilitude of customer service. But I doubt it.

Robbin Steif
LunaMetrics