Reciprocal Linking

In his book "Linked", author Albert-László Barabási details a truism about the Web that has led me to some contemplation. The interconnectedness of the Web is directed - links from one location to another are, by basic design, a one-way street. Linking to a particular site does not inherently breed reciprocation, and as a result a user or agent transversing the Web via links may have no way back to the site of origin.

The directedness of linking leads to a fragmented network topography where sites can be seen to exist in one of several basic "continents" as defined by Barabási. The "Central Core" continent consists of locations that interlink with one another to form a tight cluster whereby transversal between resources is limited only by the number of intermediaries involved. An "In Continent" consists of resources that link into the Central Core, but the connection is not reciprocated by any location within the Core. An "Out Continent" opposes this, meaning that you can get there via the Core, but once there you are unable to return directly to the Core. Further to this there are "Islands", minor tangles that exist independently of the basic structure, with no direct way to access the Core, In, or Out Continents.

This got me thinking. In developing esoterraka.com I gave no intentional consideration to the relationship this site has to the topography of the Web as a whole. But maybe I should have. If Barabási is right fair reciprocation lends a contribution to the common good by providing stability and redundancy to the Web. Furthermore, grandiose ideas about topography aside, those folks goodly enough to link into esoterraka.com are providing me a service: exposure to new visitors, and the insights their experiences bring. It seems only fair to return the favour.

With this in mind I forged a solution. Every page on esoterraka.com now uses the XMLHttpRequest object (or ActiveX equivilant) to log the referrers that lead visitors to this site. In turn, this log is converted into the links below, a list of locations responsible for delivering visitors to esoterraka.com.

Note: I've have been forced to exclude tracking certain referrers. Specifically, I don't record traffic coming from search engines, referrer spam, and email clients. Obviously this requires ongoing review and maintainence to keep the ignore list up to date, so it's possible you might see a few in the list above despite my efforts. If you think any of the referrers above don't belong, please drop me a line and let me know.

Reciprocal Linking

Buy the book