The Linking On Up Test

I mentioned the other day that my pal ShyB decided to make Things I Saw Today a regular feature on her blog. I suggested that it would be fun to enable her followers to add links to her post when they decide to participate. To do that, you need a linky. It gets a bit technical, so I volunteered to test the linky options to figure out which works best.

I’m not sure of the technical term, but there’s a LIST linky… that’s the kind where she would have a list on her site. Participants would be required to include a link back to ShyBiker’s post to access the list of other participants. There’s also a BLOG HOP linky… the creator of the linky tool I chose explained that one best, so I’ll borrow a quote from his blog to explain the blog hop.

What is a blog hop?

A blog hop is a linky list that is SHARED ON MULTIPLE BLOGS.
When several blogs put the same linky list code on their blog, the
exact same list appears on each blog.

Blog visitors can submit their entries on any blog that contains the list.
The entries will appear on each blog where the list resides.

Blog readers see the same list on each blog, and can “HOP” from blog
to blog seeing the same list of links to follow: BLOG HOP!

Get it?

Even if you don’t understand the difference, I’d like you to help me — and ShyB! — test the thing. You need a blog to do this. And it needs to be a Blogger blog or a WordPress blog that is not hosted for free on the WordPress site. Something about WordPress not allowing Java on blogs they host…

Anyway, if enough of our followers have a free WordPress blog, I’ll figure out how to get code that works for both. Meanwhile, since ShyB has a Blogger blog and I use standalone WordPress, we’ll try it this way.

But first, here’s what the link should look like on your page. Except without the blue border (I added that to make the image stand out a bit).

The Linky Tool is below.


The Linky Tool is above.

Please help us test this thing. The test will only be “live” for a few days.

In theory, the linky tool is supposed to be easy to add to your post.

One thing I discovered is to make sure you are in HTML view mode before you paste the code into your post.

WordPress is either being quirky or it’s normal to have to STAY IN HTML VIEW MODE, or the linky code will disappear.

Did you see that? Stay in HTML VIEW mode.

The way it is supposed to work is you click on “Click here to enter” and the participant form pops up. Once you enter all of the necessary info, you’ll either be given the code OR you’ll gave to select “Get the code here…” on the original post. That’s why we’re doing this test. To see if it really works the way it is supposed to.

If participants find this too difficult, we can explore other options.

2 Replies to “The Linking On Up Test”

  1. Hi buddy. Thanks again for trying to stimulate interest in this meme. I don’t think it’s gaining traction though. So far, only three readers (including you) have tried it out. My experience online is that 8 times out of 10, nobody follows our lead. (E.g., “Ask Ally”.) And if you ask people to do something complicated like adding code to their blog, that makes it even less likely.

    Thanks again.

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