My Small Rant

[JGray]

At some point or another, I usually check the links section of a webcomics site. I figure, if I like a webcomic, any other comic the creator might recommend might also be enjoyable.

What do I often see, though, when I check the recommended comics? Penny Arcade. Looking for Group. Questionable Content. That stick figure comic with the X in the title. You get the basic idea. These are, quite frankly, comics that don't need to be on the links page of a small comic. If they come to your comic? There's a good chance they know the bigguns already.

I'm not saying people should NOT promote the bigger comics. That's fine. But make sure to promote your fellow small comics as well. They deserve it and, frankly, need it more.

[Nuke]

Absolutely. I mean, I actually love penny arcade and XKCD and so forth, but there's just no point in linking them. If I ever get around to making a link section, it'll be thematically relevant and comics that I feel actually need a link.

On top of that, small comics you link are more likely to link you back. So really, win win.

[Rob]

I absolutely agree with the sentiment. But I'll tell you one thing about my links list and it was kind of an agreement we made early on about the website with each other. It's kind of a pain to update those lists, at least for my site because we coded everything ourselves and although it isn't a huge deal if we keep adding and adding it will become time consuming when we have bigger fish to fry.

So we kind of agreed that the only sites we would add to that list are sites that helped promote Remedy, one of our other comics or Remedial Comics in general. Questionable Content ran a guest strip of ours we got 90k unique hits over a 3 day weekend. Something*Positive mentioned us in their blog and we got loads of hits from that. So that is our general rule.

That's one of the main reasons I wanted to put a free rotating ad on the front of this site for anyone who wanted to contribute one; because I want to promote other, smaller comics. But doing it on my comics page is a little problematic. As time goes on I'm sure we'll add more of the smaller names.

[NoahRodenbeek]

I totally agree, but I love XKCD sooooo much.  I would never link Penny-Arcade or PvP though... or any webcomic that doesn't have a link section of their own.  Good rant, sir.

[Pete]

You'd be surprised how many people have never read some of those comics.  I've personally led people to some of those comics after being surprised myself that they hadn't read them.

I don't look at my links page so much as "promotion" of other comics, but rather a list of comics that I enjoy reading and that I want to share with other people.  A lot of my new readers that I get from conventions are not typical webcomic readers, so to them it's a whole new world of reading.

Don't assume that everyone in the world reads the same comics or even knows what kind of webcomics are out there.  The webcomics community tends to think very insularly and forgets that there is a world outside of itself.

[plughead]

The problem with linkage these days is that it tends to hurt potential ad revenue.

I've been around since 2003, and back then, everyone pimped and plugged each other all the time. For fun, for community, for the horde, and most importantly, FOR FREE. People used to blog and pimp and link other webcomics all the time, but that kinda stopped once turn-key advertising became mainstream.

Why give up free plugs when chances are good they'll advertise on your site? Besides, keeping links up-to-date is a time-consuming chore, so nowadays, most people keep their links limited to close friends and superstars.

[Alectric]

I see your point, JGray, but my philosophy for what comics I link to are simply the comics that I like most.  If you take a look at my links page (to lazy to make a link, just click my banner and then the Links page), you'll see that many of them are not too well known, but a few are big ones, and I really have the page more to convey which webcomics I like rather than which ones I think need a link.

At first, I actually thought about only linking to smaller comics, but then I had a hard time figuring out where to draw the line, and it was also hard for me to tell just how popular some webcomics really are, particularly if they don't have any project wonderful adspace, like Eros Inc.

But see, an interesting thing happened.  I decided to have all the links as a certain size banner, however a lot of webcomics don't have banner links available, or at least not in that size.  What I did was I emailed the creators to ask if they had any banners of that size that I could use, if they could make one the size I wanted, or if they would allow me to make one myself using content from their site.  The creators of the smaller comics graciously responded, but some of the bigger comics were too busy and receive to many emails to give a reply, so for them I just left it at that.  And basically, it all worked out.  That's why I don't have links to Questionable Content or Gunnerkrigg Court, but well, they don't need a link from me, so it's fine.  But I do have a link for Girls With Slingshots, because the creator happened to have a banner of the right size available on her site.

However, I actually didn't know about Gunnerkrigg Court for a while after I started reading webcomics, and I found it due to a link on another webcomic.  I didn't know about Questionable Content for much longer.  I'm so glad I found them, as they are fantastic.  The thing is, they've got to be referred to from somewhere.  I will admit that it's unlikely anyone could read my webcomic without knowing all the big ones already, but you never know.

Also, I find it somehow thrilling to see a webcomic I like link to one of the big ones that I also like.  It makes me kind of excited to see that the people I respect also respect these other people that I respect, like we have this in common, and it makes me feel like I'm really part of a big, wonderful community.

[thedugs]

I'm unsure about this.

First, we don't link to other sites... yet. But we've only been going for 10 months. We're waiting until we have a year's worth under our belt before heavy promotion. Having said that, even if a comic gets a ton of hits, why not link to them if they're funny? I LOVE Dinosaur Comics. When we start linking, I'll put them down because they're great. And who knows, maybe the author will see some hits come from us and check us out.

I worry that not putting down the big guys can come across as sonobby and elitist. "They're popular so I'm not going to mention them". No, they don't need your help, but it's your site. Link to the comics you like regardless of reputation. I'd be happy to link to Penny Arcade just as I'd be happy to link to a tiny comic only 10 people a day are reading- provided it's funny.

It's all about content. If you think it's good enough and you think it's funny enough, why not. It's your site, it has to reflect your opinion.