I haven't (yet) clicked any links in this post, but I suspect that the explanation is at least partly due to the same dynamic you see with people who leave comments: very few people who read any given post will comment on it. 90%+ of people are lurkers, for better or worse, *even if* they consider themselves infovores. An infovore may like this post, but not click on any of its links, because she has dozens of other tabs open with *other* links that she's clicked from some other page.
Depends on how many read on mobile. I almost always click on links when the desktop browser is open but almost never on smartphone. It's load time+laxk of space, difficulty of getting back to the article
Generally, in my experience - having been on the web for about as long as there has been a web - links are for one of three main purposes:
1. They are the source document under discussion. This one is obvious. It is also the most common reason for me to click from a blog or a secondary source (newspaper, magazine, review article). I want the straight stuff in that case. Real infovore territory.
2. Serving as a reference. They reiterate and support the text that is underlined. In this case, if I don't believe or understand the author, I can go to the link and get some additional details; the definition of a word, etc. Most of the time, if I don't believe, I stop reading anyway, but sometimes a source can push me over to believing... and yes, links in this sense signify the willingness to 'show your work.' You can claim credibility without earning it with a link, until someone catches on. You can fake it with ...
3. Rick-rolling the reader. Sometimes it's a joke, a falling cat, or whatever. Usually it's not funny enough for me to want to have clicked.
I love Substack, but one of the things I hate about it is that when you hover over a link, it doesn't show you what the link goes to. I like to evaluate a link before I click on it. Is it an xkcd cartoon that provides a humorous commentary? A journal article? Another one of your posts? A different post? By taking away my ability to see what a link may be, Substack reduces the chances that I'll click on it.
Also, tbh, and this is on me, a lot of my Internet reading is low-quality reading. Sometimes I just look at my Home page on Reddit but without clicking on any of the posts. I just skim endlessly. I am constantly in search of things to read but then I abandon them halfway, or become overwhelmed because I've opened 8 articles.
The third thing is, I think clicking on links disrupts my flow. The way I TEND to use links in Substacks is that I click so that they open in a different tab, and then I go look at that tab sometime later. That works better for a link in a list full of links (like a "here are the cool things I found this month" post) than it does for a link that is meant to provide context in an article.
I guess the main way to sum up the above is to say, I have ADHD. Or something similar.
I enjoyed your post and only clicked one link. I have come to view links similar to footnotes or endnotes. They are there for the author to justify or add or for those who want to go deeper. Not for the majority of people.
Also, a 25% clickthrough rate would blow e-mail marketers away. Most clickthrough rates for e-mail campaigns are below 5%.
First, I want to say that the way that a lot of people use hyperlinks makes for a really bad reading experience that taxes working memory more than is necessary. I read so that I can understand what's written, not to have an adventure tracking facts, papers, and memes through the internet.
Also, I wonder if, on average, only a third or so of Zvi's readers even read much of Zvi's posts. Substack can tell you who opens the email (if they download images, I've no idea how many people are like me and don't download them by default), or who opens the post in the app or browser, but I don't think they tell you if the readers made it to the bottom of the page or how many minutes they spent reading.
Just for fun, I thought I'd look at what sort of links Zvi has on his posts. I chose his car seat article. The links are just the sort of thing I wouldn't click. Things like a random Youtube clip that as a reader I'd (correctly) suspect isn't relevant to the article, links to papers that Zvi quotes or paraphrases (I'd skimmed the main paper at least a year ago and if I were truly interested in arguments around whether car seats act as contraceptive maybe I'd read the others), links to webpages with random facts that Zvi quotes, tweets that he quotes and that I'm not interested in learning more about, a LessWrong post that's pretty much just a picture of car seats.
If you want people to click links (for whatever reason), you shouldn't be summarizing the linked material as this is either redundant or implying that the reader shouldn't be clicking the link!
The main reason I don't click on links is a lack of time. I've had a problem in the past of subscribing to too many newsletters and blogs and noticed that when I read every additional link in the main piece I tend to get lost in the sauce and can never keep up. However, I always tap+hold on links (I read exclusively on mobile) to determine if the link seems interesting where in which I might end up visiting the link, after all.
TL;DR I always feel crunched for time and would rather read the author's actual piece than the links.
Hmm. The one link I clicked (looking for an explanation of Gell-Man amnesia) didn’t help at all. Maybe the reference is somewhere on that Wikipedia page? But I don’t want to lose my train of thought looking for it. So now I feel like I click too many links.
I want to see links and references—it gives me a sense of confidence that what you’re saying is correct. But I don’t necessarily want to verify. To be honest I’m surprised the numbers are as high as they are.
Also outbound links to reputable sites help with SEO. As do inbound links
I was interested in acquiring more context for the “Bryan Caplan strategy” of linking to one’s prior work as a means of self-promotion.
So I clicked the link in your article.
I was sent to an Econlib essay titled “A Package of Populist Deregulation”. This article does not describe in any direct way the “Bryan Caplan strategy”. Hmmm...interesting.
It seems you may have never intended to provide context for the “Bryan Caplan strategy”. After-all, the strategy seems simple enough and you described it well in your post. But if that’s true, why did you create the link?
Possible theories:
1) You wanted to boost awareness of Bryan Caplan the person.
But wouldn’t a Twitter profile or personal website be more fitting for this purpose?
2) You wanted to boost awareness of Bryan Caplan’s work.
Makes sense. It seems Bryan Caplan has written a fair amount on Econlib. But isn’t that a limited sample size? For ex, what about his books, Substack, etc. So this doesn’t seem likely.
3) You employed a sort of intermediated Bryan Caplan strategy for Bryan Caplan by posting some of his prior work (rather than your own work).
I somehow think this is the most likely reason other than #4. Although it’s still a bit of a jump, and is out of context.
4) It was a mistake.
The boring, but maybe most likely reason.
I’m really not sure. It could be any of these 4 reasons, or other reasons I’m not listing here.
Perhaps this is an explanation, if I may suggest, that one often does not click on links.
i thought i was the only one! although the links in my posts are less substantiating background info, more me just adding another layer to my quips
still, most of the emails i get make a point of saying how much they all liked the links. maybe people who like links REALLY like links, and everyone else is kinda indifferent
I clicked a link to Zvi. Also, I too do "links" posts and am surprised at how few readers actually click on any of them. Now allow me to proposition your readers with a link: https://jasonmanning.substack.com/p/links-for-may
interesting observation. on my newsletter Five Things (https://getfivethings.substack.com/) about 20% click on links, which I find extemely low, as I only share 5 things and why would someone subscribe to my newsletter who is not interested in clicking on the links?
One has to note that MR posts sometimes or entirely just links. I would add these links are not just "links" but curated information foremost. If they were coffee table books, MR would simply have better images.
All of the above. but the one that seems most dubious is actually Tyler's because who can post every day? I think he's success has to do with the content what he does post. I don't read his stuff everyday and may only go to my IRS and find that there are 25 or 30 posts on which to catch up.
I haven't (yet) clicked any links in this post, but I suspect that the explanation is at least partly due to the same dynamic you see with people who leave comments: very few people who read any given post will comment on it. 90%+ of people are lurkers, for better or worse, *even if* they consider themselves infovores. An infovore may like this post, but not click on any of its links, because she has dozens of other tabs open with *other* links that she's clicked from some other page.
Depends on how many read on mobile. I almost always click on links when the desktop browser is open but almost never on smartphone. It's load time+laxk of space, difficulty of getting back to the article
Generally, in my experience - having been on the web for about as long as there has been a web - links are for one of three main purposes:
1. They are the source document under discussion. This one is obvious. It is also the most common reason for me to click from a blog or a secondary source (newspaper, magazine, review article). I want the straight stuff in that case. Real infovore territory.
2. Serving as a reference. They reiterate and support the text that is underlined. In this case, if I don't believe or understand the author, I can go to the link and get some additional details; the definition of a word, etc. Most of the time, if I don't believe, I stop reading anyway, but sometimes a source can push me over to believing... and yes, links in this sense signify the willingness to 'show your work.' You can claim credibility without earning it with a link, until someone catches on. You can fake it with ...
3. Rick-rolling the reader. Sometimes it's a joke, a falling cat, or whatever. Usually it's not funny enough for me to want to have clicked.
I love Substack, but one of the things I hate about it is that when you hover over a link, it doesn't show you what the link goes to. I like to evaluate a link before I click on it. Is it an xkcd cartoon that provides a humorous commentary? A journal article? Another one of your posts? A different post? By taking away my ability to see what a link may be, Substack reduces the chances that I'll click on it.
Also, tbh, and this is on me, a lot of my Internet reading is low-quality reading. Sometimes I just look at my Home page on Reddit but without clicking on any of the posts. I just skim endlessly. I am constantly in search of things to read but then I abandon them halfway, or become overwhelmed because I've opened 8 articles.
The third thing is, I think clicking on links disrupts my flow. The way I TEND to use links in Substacks is that I click so that they open in a different tab, and then I go look at that tab sometime later. That works better for a link in a list full of links (like a "here are the cool things I found this month" post) than it does for a link that is meant to provide context in an article.
I guess the main way to sum up the above is to say, I have ADHD. Or something similar.
I enjoyed your post and only clicked one link. I have come to view links similar to footnotes or endnotes. They are there for the author to justify or add or for those who want to go deeper. Not for the majority of people.
Also, a 25% clickthrough rate would blow e-mail marketers away. Most clickthrough rates for e-mail campaigns are below 5%.
First, I want to say that the way that a lot of people use hyperlinks makes for a really bad reading experience that taxes working memory more than is necessary. I read so that I can understand what's written, not to have an adventure tracking facts, papers, and memes through the internet.
Also, I wonder if, on average, only a third or so of Zvi's readers even read much of Zvi's posts. Substack can tell you who opens the email (if they download images, I've no idea how many people are like me and don't download them by default), or who opens the post in the app or browser, but I don't think they tell you if the readers made it to the bottom of the page or how many minutes they spent reading.
Just for fun, I thought I'd look at what sort of links Zvi has on his posts. I chose his car seat article. The links are just the sort of thing I wouldn't click. Things like a random Youtube clip that as a reader I'd (correctly) suspect isn't relevant to the article, links to papers that Zvi quotes or paraphrases (I'd skimmed the main paper at least a year ago and if I were truly interested in arguments around whether car seats act as contraceptive maybe I'd read the others), links to webpages with random facts that Zvi quotes, tweets that he quotes and that I'm not interested in learning more about, a LessWrong post that's pretty much just a picture of car seats.
If you want people to click links (for whatever reason), you shouldn't be summarizing the linked material as this is either redundant or implying that the reader shouldn't be clicking the link!
The main reason I don't click on links is a lack of time. I've had a problem in the past of subscribing to too many newsletters and blogs and noticed that when I read every additional link in the main piece I tend to get lost in the sauce and can never keep up. However, I always tap+hold on links (I read exclusively on mobile) to determine if the link seems interesting where in which I might end up visiting the link, after all.
TL;DR I always feel crunched for time and would rather read the author's actual piece than the links.
Hmm. The one link I clicked (looking for an explanation of Gell-Man amnesia) didn’t help at all. Maybe the reference is somewhere on that Wikipedia page? But I don’t want to lose my train of thought looking for it. So now I feel like I click too many links.
I want to see links and references—it gives me a sense of confidence that what you’re saying is correct. But I don’t necessarily want to verify. To be honest I’m surprised the numbers are as high as they are.
Also outbound links to reputable sites help with SEO. As do inbound links
Enjoyed reading your post. Good ideas in it.
A quick comment/question:
I was interested in acquiring more context for the “Bryan Caplan strategy” of linking to one’s prior work as a means of self-promotion.
So I clicked the link in your article.
I was sent to an Econlib essay titled “A Package of Populist Deregulation”. This article does not describe in any direct way the “Bryan Caplan strategy”. Hmmm...interesting.
It seems you may have never intended to provide context for the “Bryan Caplan strategy”. After-all, the strategy seems simple enough and you described it well in your post. But if that’s true, why did you create the link?
Possible theories:
1) You wanted to boost awareness of Bryan Caplan the person.
But wouldn’t a Twitter profile or personal website be more fitting for this purpose?
2) You wanted to boost awareness of Bryan Caplan’s work.
Makes sense. It seems Bryan Caplan has written a fair amount on Econlib. But isn’t that a limited sample size? For ex, what about his books, Substack, etc. So this doesn’t seem likely.
3) You employed a sort of intermediated Bryan Caplan strategy for Bryan Caplan by posting some of his prior work (rather than your own work).
I somehow think this is the most likely reason other than #4. Although it’s still a bit of a jump, and is out of context.
4) It was a mistake.
The boring, but maybe most likely reason.
I’m really not sure. It could be any of these 4 reasons, or other reasons I’m not listing here.
Perhaps this is an explanation, if I may suggest, that one often does not click on links.
i thought i was the only one! although the links in my posts are less substantiating background info, more me just adding another layer to my quips
still, most of the emails i get make a point of saying how much they all liked the links. maybe people who like links REALLY like links, and everyone else is kinda indifferent
I clicked a link to Zvi. Also, I too do "links" posts and am surprised at how few readers actually click on any of them. Now allow me to proposition your readers with a link: https://jasonmanning.substack.com/p/links-for-may
Zvi’s posts are long. I wll print it if I want to read it (later). Obviously the links are then dead.
interesting observation. on my newsletter Five Things (https://getfivethings.substack.com/) about 20% click on links, which I find extemely low, as I only share 5 things and why would someone subscribe to my newsletter who is not interested in clicking on the links?
One has to note that MR posts sometimes or entirely just links. I would add these links are not just "links" but curated information foremost. If they were coffee table books, MR would simply have better images.
All of the above. but the one that seems most dubious is actually Tyler's because who can post every day? I think he's success has to do with the content what he does post. I don't read his stuff everyday and may only go to my IRS and find that there are 25 or 30 posts on which to catch up.