Carnivals

B-link

I submitted one of my posts to a blog carnival. I got an email today asking me to confirm if I would provide a link back. It was a condition for being included in the Carnival. At first, I thought it was a rather strange request. But when I checked how many people linked back to the Carnival of Small Business Issues that I host, the request felt no longer strange. What is your objective of hosting a Carnival? Is it just to get inbound links? Should that be the only reason to host a carnival?

I think not. Do I care about inbound links from blogs (B-link)? Sure. But will I impose such a condition? Probably not. The objective of this blog and of hosting a carnival is to gather different schools of thought on the pitfalls to avoid when running a small business and other management issues they face. Wise people, it is said, learn from others mistakes. It is for the benefit of small business owners that this blog exists. If this blog can prevent even one percent of small businesses from failing, I will have done my job.

I trust those participating in the Carnivals to link back to the host. It’s blogging etiquette. But once you impose a condition, I think the spirit of the Carnival is lost. It becomes, “you scratch my back and I will scratch yours.” One individual wrote to me asking me to send a reminder, if they did not link back by the end of the week. I read that email with a tinge of amusement and thought, “I am not your mother.”

Linking back does not take time at all. Here is what I do to link back:

1. As soon as a carnival host informs me (or when I find a pingback/trackback to my post), I go to the post in question and include a link back right from the same post. It does two things: A. Links back to the carnival host and B. When someone comes to your blog using the Carnival host’s link, you are providing them a link back to the Carnival.
2. I started this recently. At the end of the month, I do a monthly roundup where I provide a link back to everyone who has taken time to comment on my blog and those who have included my posts in carnivals they hosted.
3. This point does not require me to take any action. When someone links to one of the articles on this blog, your link eventually gets picked up by Technorati and gets placed in my comments section. I do follow the link-love and automatically, you now have a link back to your blog from mine. (Just don’t spam me. I will delete it.)

Just like in life, in the blog world you have to give to receive. Are you givin’? Are you B-linkin’?