Annoying Site Designs

One wonders who sites such as GoogleNews and YahooNews haven’t managed to adopt the hyperlinking protocol that has existed since the earliest days of the web: Words being hyperlined are themselves hyperlinked rather than putting a parenthetical (link) after them i.e., (news – web sites).

FILED UNDER: Blogosphere
James Joyner
About James Joyner
James Joyner is Professor and Department Head of Security Studies at Marine Corps University's Command and Staff College. He's a former Army officer and Desert Storm veteran. Views expressed here are his own. Follow James on Twitter @DrJJoyner.

Comments

  1. dw says:

    I believe that’s what either AP Style or Wired Style says. Both are out of date, though AP Style less so. Wired Style came out five years ago — kind of like using a 1950s history book to teach class in the 1980s. Oh wait, that was my high school US history class in Oklahoma….

  2. Paul says:

    They really sorta have to do it that way.

    On google especially, they search 2 different databases. One is a web search and one is a news search.

    How can they do that more elegantly?

  3. James Joyner says:

    I think the clutter is worse than the limited service provided by that. Just linking the term to the news search would be much more elegant.

  4. Paul says:

    OK different argument- if you want to ditch some function for form, I’m right behind ya.

    If people are too stupid to use a search engine too bad.

    But remember…

    The purpose of their news pages is NOT to give you the news. (provide you a service) Its purpose in life is to sell advertising. The links make people click more pages, selling more advertising. I ignore it just like I ignore the ads.

  5. James Joyner says:

    It’s only mildly annoying when I’m reading; it’s mainly a problem when I’m doing the cut-and-paste for the blog.

  6. Paul says:

    I figured.

    I’ve been wondering for some time why nobody wrote a good piece of blogging front-end software. MT and others are fine if you just want to rant but the act of blockquoting text with hyperlinks and the like is quite tedious.

  7. James Joyner says:

    True. Some MT hacks make it a little easier and there are programs like Zempt that help, but they’ve all got substantial drawbacks.