How often should a repeated word be a link?

[David Segall]

If I have a web page about the social consequences of farnarkling I
would definitely make the first use of the word a link to a
description of the game. Inevitably, the word would be repeated in the
page along with other associated words like arkle. Should all the
occurrences be links? What if I have an entire site devoted to
farnarkling?

It's not relevant to the question but in the unlikely event that you
are interested in farnarkling here's the link -
<http://www.mrjohnclarke.com/other-farnarkeling.shtml>.

 

[Beauregard T. Shagnasty]

Arrrrggghhhh! Just visited your link. Now that I have my eyeballs
back in their sockets ...

Not only that .. but after you've increased the text size to something
you can actually read, a fair portion of the content is no longer
visible at all - in that silly scrolling box. Heh, using that box is
worse than the small size.

There is no scrollbar (mouse must be placed on small red arrows
*outside* the content area), there is no indication of how much more
content is below the 'bottom' of the scroll area, and you can't scroll
very fast. Readers with motor deficiencies will immediately be looking
for their Back buttons.

 

[Jukka K. Korpela]

- -
I'd say just the first usage should be a link.

I'd say it really depends. Within a short page, it would be more or less
absurd to make several occurrences of a word a link. Within a large page,
possibly with internal anchors, so that you might jump into the middle, it's
different.

font-family: Arial, Helvetica, Verdana, sans-serif;
---->> font-size: 70%; <<---- - -
Why, oh, why did you do that?

The font size is a message. Taking it down to 70% says that it's not meant
to be read - the text is just fill-in stuff to make the pictures more
prominent and maybe to attract visitors via search engines-

 

[dorayme]

David Segall wrote: ....
Arrrrggghhhh! Just visited your link. Now that I have my eyeballs back
in their sockets ...

---->> font-size: 70%; <<----


Why, oh, why did you do that?

Why do you think David (rather than someone else) did this?

 

[David Segall]

I'd say just the first usage should be a link.

Arrrrggghhhh! Just visited your link. Now that I have my eyeballs back
in their sockets ...

Oh dear. I should have realised that posting any link in this
newsgroup is an invitation to criticize the mark up rather than look
at the content. In Australia, the comedian John Clarke has made
farnarkling a generic word for a sport although he invented the sport
and an extensive vocabulary to describe it. It's his site.

It was a bad example and I should have chosen something more easily
recognised internationally although I suspect that sports commentators
are the same the world over.

 

[Adrienne Boswell]

Gazing into my crystal ball I observed David Segall

Oh dear. I should have realised that posting any link in this
newsgroup is an invitation to criticize the mark up rather than look
at the content. In Australia, the comedian John Clarke has made
farnarkling a generic word for a sport although he invented the sport
and an extensive vocabulary to describe it. It's his site.

It was a bad example and I should have chosen something more easily
recognised internationally although I suspect that sports commentators
are the same the world over.

If it's not your site, you need to mention that in your OP, or you need
to specifically state that you're only interested in blah.

You have to remember this is an HTML group, and the people here will
always look at the markup, and perhaps have something to say. That's a
good thing - there might be something that you missed, or someone might
have an idea that might make a page better.

If you are concerned about SEO, then you could go over to
alt.internet.search-engines and ask over there. The group is pretty
quiet, it's just those of us who are lieing in wait.

 

[David Segall]

Gazing into my crystal ball I observed David Segall


If it's not your site, you need to mention that in your OP, or you need
to specifically state that you're only interested in blah.

You have to remember this is an HTML group, and the people here will
always look at the markup, and perhaps have something to say. That's a
good thing - there might be something that you missed, or someone might
have an idea that might make a page better.

Have a heart Adrienne. I have already done a mea culpa. Do you expect
a mea culpa maxima?

If you are concerned about SEO,

No. It was just a question of style.

 

[dorayme]

Have a heart Adrienne. I have already done a mea culpa. Do you expect
a mea culpa maxima?

Follow my rule as much as possible: never ask a question on
usenet, never cook a calf in its mother's milk... for more
advice, please send me several free tickets to Sydney movies...

 

[Neredbojias]

Have a heart Adrienne. I have already done a mea culpa. Do you expect
a mea culpa maxima?

You call that a mea culpa? Back in the old days you would've had to
stand on a rock barefoot and repeated over and over again something
like "I promise I will do html markup correctly in the future," for 24
hours straight! For more serious offenses, the time was lengthened but
you could sit. However, the rock was sharp...

 

[Joy Beeson]

If I have a web page about the social consequences of farnarkling I
would definitely make the first use of the word a link to a
description of the game. Inevitably, the word would be repeated in the
page along with other associated words like arkle. Should all the
occurrences be links? What if I have an entire site devoted to
farnarkling?

If you use the word "fanarkling" a lot, linking the first occurrence
after each anchor ought to be plenty. If it rarely occurs on the
site, link all occurrences. If you can assume that no-one would read
your page unless he is already a fanarkler, no occurrences need to be
linked.

It's a matter of style and taste and purpose, so no hard-and-fast
answer can be given. In any matter involving art, rules at best are
suggestions of places to look when the art isn't working.

So: if the page looks all flyspecked, there are probably too many
links. If the reader can come upon a mysterious word and can't see
any link without paging up or down, there are probably too few.

It's also possible that the content needs to be re-written to reduce
the need for looking up mysterious words.

Joy Beeson