Do links to your other reviews actually generate more traffic?

**Penguinlady**[$] · #1 02-05-2004, 08:36 PM

I have been faithfully including links to other reviews, my own and other people's, where appropriate in my reviews. However, I have yet to see a single additional hit on any of my own linked reviews. So, given the aggravation of creating the links, I'm thinking it isn't worth it.

What is your experience?

nc10 · #2 02-05-2004, 09:19 PM

Quote:

Penguinlady said

What is your experience?

'bout like yours, best I can tell, though I've not used links a lot.

lyagushka · #3 02-06-2004, 07:40 AM

Well, who can tell for sure? We can't post a given review both with and without additional links, so how are we to know for certain that we're getting more views because of links, or not?

But that said, I do have a few reviews that seem to get a lot more hits than I *think* they would otherwise be getting because of a link from another review. These tend to be very closely related topics. For instance, a destination review of a city and the hotel review of the place I stayed while I was there. Chances are pretty good that if someone's looking for info on a city, they'll also be interested in lodging in that city.

But I don't seem to generate more views on destination reviews by including links to other places, even nearby places. And I almost always ignore links to other reviews when I'm reading from the just-in section. In fact, it's getting to the point that I find links at the bottom of reviews annoying. I think I'm heading to the point when I will only add in links on my own reviews after they've dropped off my most recent five list.

HTH

eplovejoy · #4 02-06-2004, 02:03 PM

I've had a few people tell me that links I've included have helped them find reviews they enjoyed. Not my reviews but ones by other people. I guess my instinct is to provide them when they're relevant, but not to expect that doing so will boost my numbers.

One of my biggest motivations is that it is sometimes challenging to find items in the Epinions database and so if I can spare someone from going through the same time-consuming search I've gone through, they might appreciate it.

**Penguinlady**[$] · #5 02-06-2004, 02:23 PM

how are we to know for certain that we're getting more views because of links, or not?

The way you can tell if you're getting more hits on a linked review is by the dates of the hits on it. If you set all your reviews to alert you to new ratings, you'll know when you get new hits, and may be able to relate them to the links. It works for member hits only, of course.

sleeper54 · #6 02-06-2004, 08:04 PM

..
The only user I know that swears by them is popsrocks/Phil.

But his are most frequently travel reviews. Perhaps they are more benficial in those, as lyagushka already hinted at (I think..?).

...tom...

Flamepillar · #7 02-08-2004, 10:37 AM

In some cases, I'd say they do make a difference. My Top 10 Movies (which just passed 10,000 hits, and I just posted it in August.. yeahoo!) links to the individual reviews for several of the movies, and most of the hits on the individual reviews have increased from 125% to almost straight up doubling since I posted the Top 10 list. Of course, most of them only got 10-20 hits a month before, and get 15-50 a month now. So it's still a pretty small fraction of the viewers clicking across to another review, but it's something.