Navigating Links

Eszter Hargittai (2008) examines the impact that Internet links has on users, and the behind the scenes make up of how links are presented on web pages and with regards to search engines. Hyperlinking has become an essential part of the Internet and has been a main determinant of its success today. On every web page, this point and click method allows users to easily navigate from page to page or site to site. What many users are unaware of is how these links are structured and the potential dangers and misconceptions that can be found behind these links.

Search engines serve as a good example to view the differences of how links are sorted. One way is through financing, or paying engines to display you link first. This “bidding” method can also be found on web pages, whether it be on side scrolls or within the text. According to Hargittai, a second type of method search engines use are the amount of “links pointing to you (web page) and especially having ones from popular, established and well-regarded sites” (p. 92). Search engines such as Google will list sites based on the credibility it has with relations to respected sites.

The last theory Hargittai examines is the knowledge of users who access the Internet daily. It was surprising to view how little of a percentage of everyday users, especially college students, have little knowledge of how search engines rank sites and the manipulations that often occur when trying to retrieve credible information.

I have had a lot of experience with using search engines, using them almost daily. I have found that the relevant information I search for has become easier to obtain within the first page or two of search engines.

Previously, I would often experience clicking on links that didn’t pertain to what I was searching for, and being bombarded by pop ups and porn site offers more often than not. The methods of measuring the credibility of websites by how they are linked to others have made the use of search engines easier.

Hargittai, Eszter. (2008). The role of expertise in navigating links of influence. In Joseph Turow and Lokman Tsui (Eds.), The hyperlinked society: Questioning connections in the digital age (pp. 85-103). Ann Arbor, MI: The University of Michigan Press.