Links, Lawyers, Guns, and Money. Could Your Link Strategy Get You Sued

If a recent lawsuit holds up, you may need to think twice before doing something that up till now seemed like one of the cornerstone freedoms the internet has bestowed upon us: linking out to another website.

Here's the story:
The Case

Gatehouse, the owner of several newspapers, is suing the New York Times for placing links on the NYT website that links their readers to the content on Gatehouse owned sites. Along with the links, NYT is including snippets of content from each story, which is also a very common practice on the internet.

The primary goal could be to get the NYT to pay royalty fees to Gatehouse for the right to link to their content.

Content Aggregators

Obviously, the NYT provides a lot of unique content each day for its readers, but they also try to act as a central hub where people can find other info out on the web that is not written by the Times. One could argue that these types of content aggregators provide a good service by pointing people to other great content on the web. They are not forcing anyone to click on the link and look at it.

Who Should be Paying Who for Links?

In fact, one could make the argument that it's Gatehouse that should be paying the NYT a fee for all the traffic they are referring to them! While some readers may just scan the snippets provided, others may click the link and go to the Gatehouse owned newspaper sites. This traffic could result in new subscriptions or more ad revenue for Gatehouse.

There is a place for sites that aggregate content and allow others a central starting point to find other information. One example of this type of aggregation are business reputation sites which aggregate information about companies so that people can find everything in one place, rather than having to search through 20 different sites to find it all.

On the other hand, Gatehouse would make the argument that if people can get all the local content they need on the NYT website, than there would be no need for anyone to ever visit the Gatehouse owned websites that actually created the content!

Both arguments make sense, so it will be up to the courts to decide the line between free speech and copyright protection.

What it Means - How Could This Impact Your Future Link Strategy?

In reality, large news sites do not care about the average site or blog that links to their content. In fact, they probably appreciate it since it can only mean more traffic and visibility for them. The large newspapers and other online news organizations are more concerned about their competitors acting as aggregators, pulling in news that they did not spend all the time, money, and effort to produce.

Don't worry too much about having to change your own link strategy any time soon.

Content Aggregation VS Unique, Fresh Content

As I just did in this article above, there are times when it's perfectly appropriate to link to another website so that your readers can benefit from the content on another site. This is so obvious that it shouldn't need to be said.

However, the best bet is to always focus on developing fresh, unique content that is both informative and interesting. In the long run, this will build more credibility with your readers. Unique content is also the only way to build free search engine traffic over time, since search engines will not rank duplicate content that is just syndicated across many sites.