What can we learn from a Website´s Outbound Links?

What´s the Message in an Outbound Link?

Stupid question, huh? The message is behind the link. Or it is in the words of the link. True, true.
But what message do a website's outbound links carry about the website itself?

Professor Jonathan Zhu of the City University of Hong Kong has researched the hyperlinking behaviour of Chinese, mainly whether they tend to link to other websites within their own province, country, or to pages abroad. He comes to the conclusion that of the Chinese webpages they looked at, only 6% were linking to sources overseas.

Is that a message? The City University of Hong Kong study doesn't seem to be available online, and Thomas Crampton doesn't seem to have got more material about the issue yet, either. So, I haven't found any interpretation of the "message" yet.

This bit of information about Chinese hyperlinking behaviour wouldn't be meaningful enough to assume that Chinese webmasters are not interested in the outside world.
It wouldn't be meaningful enough to suppose that Chinese website makers usually don't understand foreign languages (besides, many foreign websites are in Chinese, too).
It wouldn't be meaningful enough to think that it is because of China's transdanwei or cellular society, where anything beyond your home town or home province would be of little interest to you.

There will be a lot of un-knowns, as long as Prof Zhu doesn't come back to Mr Crampton.

Now that the un-knowns have become known un-knowns, let me turn to what I know.

Where do my outbound links go to? This question should answer itself. But as you probably won't go to my website to count and classify them, let me do it for you.

I have classified the countries of origin by where or who the bloggers, webmasters or organisations are, and not by their domain extensions.

My outbound links go to webpages from

Europe: 68 links (27.2%)
North America: 58 links (23.2%)
Mainland China: 57 links (22.8%)
Foreigners in China: 23 links (9.2%)
Other Asian: 16 links (6.4%)
Hong Kong: 12 links (4.8%)
Taiwan: 11 links (4.4%)
Australia: 3 links (1.2%)
Multi-national: 2 links (0.8%)
Latin America: 0 links
(Data as of January 11, 2007)

My outbound links go to webpages in (language)

English: 202 links (80.8%)
Chinese: 40 links (16%)
German: 6 links (2.4%)
Italian: 1 link (0.4%)
Laotian: 1 link (0.4%)
(Data as of January 11, 2007)

Nothing striking, I guess. But let me give you an additional information: the main topic of my website is CHINA.
And there are more outbound links to European and North American webpages, than to ones of mainland China, Hong Kong, or Taiwan.

The reasons for this are unknown to me. But I'm trying to change this, and think about them.

Reason One

An obvious reason should be my language barrier. I can quite easily communicate in Chinese, and I can read a Chinese newspaper. But if I had to read a Chinese novel, it would daunt me. Chinese words don't c-c-come easy to me in writing. I'm much more likely to stumble over an article in English or German, than over one in Chinese. Until recently, I haven't even used Chinese search machines.

Reason Two

Let me bring in something more controversial. Could it be that Chinese online texts are more likely to be boring than English ones? I suppose the answer is Yes and No. Take stuff like this, some Mid-autumn reflections by Wang Dechun. By my own cliche standards, that one is full of cliches. But then, it says a lot about the way Chinese people may learn, live, quote others, refer to role models, or reflect on life. It's no secret that traditionally, the first aim of a Chinese person isn't to be original or scintillatingly witty. If you want a neighbourhood full of, umm, David Lettermans, don't go to China. It is what it is, and its websites (as long as they aren't censored in one or another way) say a lot about the country. And yes – we may have to read between the lines, as outsiders.
Besides, reason two shouldn´t keep me from linking to many more Chinese-language webpages from Hong Kong, Taiwan, and non-Chinese countries.

Reason Three

Backlinks. (More courtly: utility.) Are Chinese-language websites (privately run or public) likely to link to you? Haohaoreport is a much safer bet. In fact, you create your own inbound link there. Same with many individual Western webmasters. They link much more easily to people they have never met, don´t they?

Reason Four (to some extent probably related to Reason One and Two)

Western online sources speak to me much more directly than Chinese ones. Even minus the language barrier and the need to read between the lines (rather often anyway), Chinese sources just don't "stirr" me as much as Western ones. The Chinese simply don't look at China the way people as you and me do!


What other reasons? My search goes on.

2008-01-13

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