One thing I've noticed among the top motorcycle blogs, is that very few give credit where credit is due.

A "credit link", or "reference link", is simply a link back to the blog or website where you found the inspiration for a new article. It's part of a larger blogging phenomenon called the "meme".

A meme is like a "thread" on a message board, except it's carried out across multiple blogs. One blogger will post something really profound, funny, newsworth, or cool on their blog. A second blogger will see it, and then write about it on their blog, and include a credit link to the previous blog. Then other bloggers will see the second blogger, and then write about it on their blogs, and post credit links to the second blogger, or first blogger, or both. And then so on and so on. It starts a chain of reaction that spreads out across several blogs, sometimes thousands.

That chain reaction builds up Google PageRank value for each of the blogs linked within that chain. The first blog in that meme ends up with a bonanza of PageRank, and that's usually how people build themselves a career in blogging, by writing really good material that gets the blogosphere talking.

If you don't offer that credit link, then you're breaking the chain. You're stealing thunder, basically, for yourself.

Credit linking is very strong in the electronics and gadget blogging world, and as a result, it has built up a lot of PageRank for all of the blogs there. Because everyone gets involved in reacting to each other's articles, and linking back to them, everyone shares in the PageRank, and everyone gets a boost out of it.

I just wish I could see more of that in the motorcycle blogging community.

If you found a very interesting piece of motorcycle news on Biker News Online, and you decided to blog about the same news on yours, then give me a credit link, just to say thanks for giving you the inspiration. I'll do the same for you.

Methods of Credit Linking

Often, bloggers will just create a credit link using some words in the middle of a paragraph.

But there's also a popular way of using a postscript. For example, you might see the following at the end of an article...

via Motorcycle Philosophy

or

KT DID via Motorcycle Philosophy

The first example above, simply says, "The source for my article came from Motorcycle Philosophy".

The second example says, "The primary source of this news comes from KT DID, but Motorcycle Philosophy is where I found out about it."

Instead of using "via", you could also say, "source", or "thanks", or whatever you think works.

Just do all of your fellow bloggers a favor, and give credit where credit is due, and you'll find that they'll do the same for you.

Labels: Blogging-Ethics, Linking-Strategies