(Reading time: 2 – 3 minutes)
Benefit: Deep linking helps improve search engine results and provides more context for reader interaction.
Problem: Creating long narrative structures delimited by time intervals with variable length requires support from multiple sources, including comments and discussion from readers at any previous point in time.
Practical WordPress Tip: Link directly to comments.
Here’s how: Once you understand the concept, it’s easy. Support your link to a comment with contextually relevant anchors as you would any other link. The key is finding a permalink to the comment you want to link to:
- Some WordPress themes do not provide a permalink to individual comments. In this case, it’s moot. You will have to link to the page, and provide instructions for the reader to find the comment.
- Themes that do provide a permalink to individual comments do so in different ways. For example, in Thesis theme, the permalink may be associated with the comment number in the upper right corner of the comment. Other themes implement comment permalinks differently.
Why: I’ve never seen anyone discuss linking directly to comments. I have seen it done elsewhere, but only on blogs or websites with relatively sophisticated authors having many years of experience with hypertext.
Note: once you are using this (and similar linking techniques), your ability to exploit hypertext will improve markedly. Most bloggers will never take the time to master hypertext, and it does take time.
Previous Practical WordPress Tip: Practical WordPress Tip #18: Deep link to internal anchors. Deep linking adds blog value by exposing more content to both readers and search engines. Learn a little used technique to expand deep linking opportunities.
Next Practical WordPress Tip: Stay tuned…
Do you have a Tip? Would you like to write a Practical WordPress Tip? Each Tip is very short, and focuses on a single action that anyone can use right away, no programming required! If you have a Tip that fits into this series, and you’d like to publish it here on Website In A Weekend, send it on!
Hi Dave,
I think I need to read the previous tip first because unless hyperlinking is linking words within a post to another post within the site (which I’m doing already), then I don’t even know what hyper linking is!
I’ll have a look at how my theme does comments because this sounds like a cool idea.
Off to check out your previous 18 tips now ;)
Eleanor –
Most people limit their notion of hypertext to “click here.”
Dig around, ask questions.
.-= Dr WordPress!´s last blog ..MasterMind Power IV: Some MasterMind Examples =-.
If the comment is recent enough, WordPress provides a link to the comment in the “Recent Comments” widget on the Dashboard. I’ve used this along with a quick “copy link location” to quickly retrieve the link to recent comments. This only works for the few most recent comments though.
.-= Deacon´s last blog ..I’m Buying an Apple iPad. This Will Change Things. =-.
I did not know this!
I’m betting the whole comment stream is available through the API. Yet one more thing to learn about WP. Gaak.
.-= Dr WordPress!´s last blog ..Lego Manta Warriors? Pantyliner Ads? It’s gotta be the Week in Review =-.
If you look in the comments menu and view all your approved comments you can do the “copy link location” on the date, ie: Submitted on 2010/01/29 at 9:28am – the italics part is usually a permalink to the comment.
Not sure if this changes by theme tho.
.-= Josh´s last blog ..Domains, Hosting and Making It All Repeatable =-.
Won’t work if you aren’t an admin on that blog.
I’ll have more to say about comment linking in near future.
.-= Dr WordPress!´s last blog ..DIY WordPress: Thesis Theme Custom Splash Page =-.
Despite the fact that my girly mind refuses to decode your problem statement, I’m seriously excited about this tip (19) and its predecessor (18). Being able to link to a specific comment? Cool. Being able to link to a particular paragraph or sentence within a post? SHIVERS.
I have had many, many instances when I wanted to refer to a particular point in another post and just had to hope that readers followed the link and waded through 2,000 words or so to find that point. Since most of my points are tangential and most of my pieces are loooooong, I knew that my embedded superflashes of brilliance were probably not shining very brightly at all.
So I love these two tips. And generally I’m not a tips girl.
Miss Kelly, careful what you wish for… your mastery of these techniques will take “meta” to heights, or perhaps I should say depths, of staggering complexity.
Time consuming.
Intricate.
And it can be disappointing. So very few people get it.
.-= Dr WordPress!´s last blog ..MasterMind Power IV: Some MasterMind Examples =-.
I think it’s pretty cool too – I’ve noticed you using it to highlight skipping parts of the article that aren’t relevant to some – beats having to split the article if you don’t want to and risk people leaving because they couldn’t be bothered finding the right post with the right info.
.-= Josh´s last blog ..Writing Techniques For Bricks & Mortar Business Websites =-.
It is a great tip. I’m just wondering how I can do it with Disqus comments.
.-= Mike CJ´s last blog ..Why I unsubscribed from your blog =-.
You can, and as a matter of pure coincidence, yesterday I linked to a disqus comment for tomorrow’s article from a comment I left on Risley’s blog last week.
In short: disqus example appears tomorrow.
Warning: it takes *time* to dig up comments and link to them. People under the impression that a great blog post takes 20 minutes to write are full of BS. It can take 10-15 minutes to find and anchor a comment correctly. You’ve been warned.
However, as I mentioned to Carlos, when you do this, you get yet another opportunity to capture the reader’s interest.
.-= Dr WordPress!´s last blog ..MasterMind Power III: The 5 Ws Of a Successful Mastermind Group =-.
Folks, as you are going to very quickly find out, implementing hyperlinks to their full capabilities is not well-supported by many tools. Usually, you have to keep track of everything yourself, and hard code anchors, title attributes, etc.
I won’t be able to write with this intricacy for every article, nor for too much longer. It is time-consuming. However, I’m betting that it pays off huge long term. Until it finally gets to be too much work, I’ll do as much as I can to delight and astonish you.
.-= Dr WordPress!´s last blog ..MasterMind Power I: How 5 Boys Achieved Unparalled Success =-.
Hey Dave,
First, I’ve been meaning to give you a “shaka that” for including a Reading time estimate at the top of your posts. I think that is a brilliant move. Can I borrow this idea from you? I think that it says to the reader you care a lot about his or her time.
Second, this an awesome post. I hadn’t thought of doing this before. I’m kinda of techie geek girl, so I’m bowing my head in shame right now. (ha)
Finally, thanks for putting the bug in our ears about writing a tip for your site. I use the Headway theme with WordPress and have stumbled across some groovy tips since I’ve started blogging, but these tips don’t fit in with my blog or what readers expect to find when they visit my site. Thanks for offering your site as a means for me to express my geekitude.
I’ll put something together for you and send it along.
You rock!
:)
.-= Lori´s last blog ..The Harvard Psychedelic Club: Another Piece of the Puzzle =-.
Hi Lori,
Reading time – you should be able to find an article I wrote for Ben Henry via the search box. Implement at will. I stole it from Tim Ferris.
Found it: http://website-in-a-weekend.net/extending-wordpress/how-to-customize-estimated-reading-time-plugin-for-wordpress/
One of the coolest things about having a DIY audience is you guys accumulate a huge quantity of material that’s totally off-topic for your sites.
I don’t (generally) do things by accident.
=)
If it’s WordPress related, I’m definitely open!
.-= Dr WordPress!´s last blog ..Blogging Katamari Style (I’m gonna roll you up!) =-.
Roger that!
=)
.-= Lori´s last blog ..The Harvard Psychedelic Club: Another Piece of the Puzzle =-.
I’ve only ever seen this strategy done where bloggers are highlighting a comment as the basis of a new post on their blog.
I think I might have seen it recently where someone mentioned a comment on someone else’s post, but didn’t link to it even though it had a permalink. Weird that this isn’t really commonly used in practice. Makes you wonder why the permalink is even there if it’s not being used much.
I sometimes link to comments that I’ve made on people’s blogs using twitter saying that I just commented on that article and invite others to join the convo..
Thanks for the tip!
.-= Josh´s last blog ..Setting Up My Web Design Mini Business [Case Study] =-.
I now know some great people to turn to when I get stuck. It seems you guys are an untapped mine of useful tricks and tips. Just need to buy some more time to implement some of it now ;)
.-= Eleanor Edwards´s last blog ..1 Minute Motivator: The Next Moment =-.
@Josh – Some of this stuff might qualify for “old school.”
I think part of why some people sneer at “blogging” is because the technical quality of the hypertext is so lame… never mind the writing. Most people treat a blog post as some sort of Microsoft Word document they can magically post on the internet. Which does short shrift to the medium. Might as well run blogs from Google Docs.
@Eleanor – There is a LOT here. Some of which I don’t believe you will find anywhere else.
.-= Dr WordPress!´s last blog ..Got Blogging Blues? Dr Johnson Cures What Ails You (& Week in Review) =-.
One thing I’ve seen authors use linking to comments for is within the comment section itself. When you start getting more than a dozen comments, it’s hard to keep track of who said what unless you’re using nested comments. Even then there are many flaws with the system.
Chris Pearson (author of thesis theme) strongly recommends using links to comments to make conversation easier to follow for everyone involved.
I’m glad to see other blog authors talking about this :)
.-= Blake @ Props Blog Rewiews´s last blog ..Don’t Judge A Blog By It’s Homepage: At Online Marketing Blog Content is King =-.
Good to see you again Blake.
Yes, very few blog writer exploit a tiny fraction of what hypertext is capable of achieving. Linking to comments is just one small example.
.-= Dr WordPress!´s last blog ..Your First AWeber Autoresponder Followup Series =-.
Whooh!
Away for a few days and there is month’s of info to absorb and implement! Awesome! … Now I know what you are getting at, or at least have an inkling!
So there is a science to it all.
Nose to the keyboard for the next few days …
.-= Valentina´s last blog ..The Mitts That Were Seen Around the World! =-.