Hi everyone,

I'm new at this site, but I'm not new at webmastering... I've always had a question concerning adding links to your website. Are you allowed to add a link to a website without asking permission from the webmaster? I've always sent them an email requesting permission, but I was curious to find out if that was even necessary.

Thanks a bunch
NightJewel

I don't believe it's necessary at all. But some webmasters like to know when people link to their websites, not for any privacy reason - just because they like it.

If it's not really any hassle, you might want to let the webmaster know, but it isn't necessary to ask, no.

Better to err on the side of caution - and courtesy. Deep linking can be seen as intrusive and many web sites won't allow it. Better to ask first.

I have to disagree. You can link to anyone you want and you really don't need permission. Links are the nature of the web. If someone doesn't want you linking to a page then that page probably shouldn't be online in the first place.

Links are extremely important to getting pages found in search engines, so most any webmaster or site owner would be happy to have one. It might be true that some people don't want their pages found in search engines or found at all, but if that's the case they should password protect those pages. If it's online in time it will be found and quite possibly someone else will eventually link to it.

Now if someone asked me to remove a link from my site to their site I would. I'll gladly respect their request, but I'm not going to waste my time asking whenever I want to link out from my site.

Originally Posted by vangogh

I have to disagree. You can link to anyone you want and you really don't need permission. Links are the nature of the web. If someone doesn't want you linking to a page then that page probably shouldn't be online in the first place.

Links are extremely important to getting pages found in search engines, so most any webmaster or site owner would be happy to have one. It might be true that some people don't want their pages found in search engines or found at all, but if that's the case they should password protect those pages. If it's online in time it will be found and quite possibly someone else will eventually link to it.

Now if someone asked me to remove a link from my site to their site I would. I'll gladly respect their request, but I'm not going to waste my time asking whenever I want to link out from my site.

I couldn't have said it any better. I agree 100%

True enough, VanGogh, but I still think it would be better to ask first . You don't HAVE to ask, but a little courtesy goes a long way.

Thanks a bunch everyone..

I understand LadynRed, which is why I'll remove any link if someone asks me to. My thought though is that I write a blog post just about every evening and many will contain 2 or 3 links to other sites. There's no way I could wait on each to get back to me before publishing that post.

I agree about the courtesy, but I do think it's the nature of the web. One site links to another which links to another and so on. It doesn't seem practical to me to ask everyone if it's ok to link to them.

But I will remove one if someone would prefer. I do want to respect other site owners, though I think for the most part people will be happy to have the links.

Originally Posted by NightJewel

Hi everyone,

I'm new at this site, but I'm not new at webmastering... I've always had a question concerning adding links to your website. Are you allowed to add a link to a website without asking permission from the webmaster? I've always sent them an email requesting permission, but I was curious to find out if that was even necessary.

Thanks a bunch
NightJewel

Can you be more specific?

the webmasters of sites can actually see were abouts people are being sent from using awstats i think its called which is installed on most cpanels now and so there is no need but if they do request that you remove the linking (which is highly unlikely) then you are best of doing that.

I think most of websites are welcome for your link including my website

Originally Posted by futurevisions

I don't believe it's necessary at all. But some webmasters like to know when people link to their websites, not for any privacy reason - just because they like it.

If it's not really any hassle, you might want to let the webmaster know, but it isn't necessary to ask, no.

Webamsters can also perform a Google or Yahoo or other SE's to look up who's linking to their sites.

SEARCH FOR:

link:SOMESITE.COM

-- and this will return a list of all the sites linking to your site, BTY Google dont always index all the links, it only indexes the links it conciders relevant. so you may wanna try a different search engine for this... also you can find out who is talking or refearing to / about your site by adding a simple "@" and your domain name in a Google Query i.e.

@yoursite.com

this will return a list of sites that include yoursite.com within its content.