Ponder with me for a moment: what does it mean to link to someone in a blog?
An immediate and naive answer is that linking is an endorsement. One links to a site that says something cool, or something that one wishes that one has said oneself, or something that one feels needs saying. This would seem to be the idea that stands behind blog-ads: group X pays blogger Y to put up a link to X’s site, as an indirect endorsement of group X to Y’s readers.
As an answer, this is inadequate. For one thing, while it makes sense for X to see things that way, I’ve read comments on a number of blogs that indicate that the bloggers themselves don’t see themselves as endorsing their advertisers necessarily. For another, it doesn’t explain the common practise of linking to a site that one disagrees with, to then (attempt to) tear down the post/site/person in question. So while an endorsement is sufficient grounds for a link, it’s hardly necessary.
I think a better answer is this: linking to a site is making — and propogating — the observation that one’s readers should visit the site. Maybe because it’s worth reading; maybe because it’s not worth reading, but without visiting it one won’t know where the blogger in question is coming from. Thus, Big Media Matt can (and does) link to InstaSomeone with the intent of demonstrating the wrongness of that Someone’s viewpoints. It wouldn’t make a whole lot of sense to make the demonstration without a reference to the subject, and on the Web a reference is just a link away.
So turn it around: what should it mean when a link is withheld? One answer (though probably not the only one) comes from the contrapositive of the above statement: if one links to a site to say look at this
, then if one doesn’t want one’s readers to look at something, one won’t link to it. And hence by talking about another web site without linking to it, one can make a certain statement: This is not worth looking at
.
Of course, when dismissing a site this way there is always the danger that others won’t know what one is talking about. That may or may not be relevant; personal blogs, especially, are an unusual mixture of public and private information. Posting information that only a few people will understand is relatively common, I suspect. Besides, bloghounds are generally pretty savvy folks when it comes to the Web; one can easily point to a site without linking to it, by providing sufficient information about it.