This good post argues that self-linking is on the rise. It starts from a brief comment arguing that external linking is dying: "the link economy is broken."
Ingram argues that self-linking, rather than external linking (i.e., what most people think of as linking), is another move in the ancient rhetorical game of building one's rep:
the desire on the part of sites like CNET to prove how authoritative they are by making it look as though the only stories worth linking to are their own...
In a sense we're seeing another response to the so-called problem of deep linking. It's a strategy of shaping the user's experience, controlling it, trapping the reader like an insect caught in webbing.
There are many good reasons for self-linking, such as introducing first-time readers to some of your content. But a closed loop of internal links is as bad as a scholarly paper which cites only its author.
the very essence of wikipedia!
Posted by: peter naegele | October 03, 2008 at 13:58
Getting external links are becoming more diffult and the importance of self linking is increasing. Also I have noticed that people really read related stuff if linked in the post..
Posted by: Stumble Cult | October 04, 2008 at 11:50
There's a bunch of stuff tagging in delicious as
http://delicious.com/tag/warning:indirect-selflink
the indirect self-link is the appropriate structure for this; instead of linking to yourself, link to something that links to you, allowing your readers to make a nice round-trip through some trustable source. the more of these you can chain together, the more the appearance of veracity.
Posted by: Edward Vielmetti | October 05, 2008 at 19:35