When I first started this blog it was all about my opinions and writing, but there was so much more I wanted to do. I wanted to embed videos I found, and link to interesting articles. I wanted to comment on those articles as well. I knew nothing about Daring Fireball, which is essentially doing the linking to interesting articles, but not so much the long posts which I do. The one thing I have learned how to do better is give attribution to those posts to which I link. Attribution etiquette after the break.
In the commercial blogging world (I mean people for whom blogging is a profession) page views are the bread and butter of their profession. Notice that I have not included myself as a professional as my blog has yet to earn enough for me to do this full time. That will come as my visitors are increasing every week and every month. Because page views are so important, it is unseemly to copy another’s post and attribute it to yourself. This is copyright infringement, but most blogger are happy to let you use part of their post so long as you link to the post from which it came.
Why are they happy for you to do this? Because most people will peek over to the linked post to see why you made your comments. That counts as a page view. Also the more external links a blog has the higher it is rated in some search engines. If a blogger can show that they have 1000 or 10.000 page views per day, they can charge higher ad rates, or they get more click throughs.
So, here are my thoughts on Attribution for blogs entries. I always present the link first thing in my post. I use blockquote tag for any excerpts from the post or article. My opinion is never block quoted. I also attribute the blog or site from which I got to the originating document. I am trying to actually link to that post that brought me to the original content. Why am I doing that? Because I want people to know how I got to the original documents. I use a (Via) format.
This is the format that is used by the MarsEdit blogging software which makes it easier for me to accomplish this. It took me a while to understand what the Via attribution was for, but now I understand and going forward the Via attribution will link to the post that led me to the original document.
Remember to give attribution when needed. You will feel better, your readers will thank you for providing the service, and the blogger who started you thinking will enjoy the page views coming from your site.
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