Blog homeI really don’t like “click here” links on websites. But perhaps I should like them as maybe they can inform us about the approach of the designers and managers behind a website - acting as a canary (more on this later).
What is wrong with “click here” links?
- It is really really bad for search engine optimisation (and all websites want good SEO right?). The link text can suggest a great deal both about the page that the link is on - and the page being linked to….. so unless the object page really is about “clicks” (which, trust me, it won’t be) - then do come up with some other text for the link. Google and other search engines will love you more if you do.
- The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines specifically say don’t use “click here” links. It is checkpoint 13.1. This is because auditory users (people who are blind or have difficulty seeing - or who are using devices with small or no displays) - are unable to scan the page quickly with their eyes. To get an overview of a page or to quickly find a link, these users will often tab from one link to the next or review a list of available links on a page.
It isn’t just me that says they are bad - but the web usability guru Jakob Nielsen listed the “click here” link as one of the top web design mistakes of 2005 (that was 2 years ago!)
The alternatives are to use meaningful link texts….. I would go as far as to say that most web designers know this, all search engine optimisation agencies absolutely know this - and users of content management systems, like people in the marketing team, tend to forget this time after time unless constantly reminded…… your mileage may vary of course!
I also believe that “Click here” should not be used in ALT text for images that are also hyperlinked.
My hypothesis is that websites that are better managed - and are better optimised for search engines - will therefore not be using “click here” links. Lets see if this is true in practice with an analysis of some leading UK travel websites:
| Website | Pages with click here | Total web pages | % of Click here pages vs total pages |
| LateRooms.com | 43 | 819,000 | 0.01 |
| TravelRepublic.co.uk | 3 | 31,000 | 0.01 |
| OnTheBeach.com | 2 | 16,900 | 0.01 |
| Kayak | 137 | 206,000 | 0.07 |
| Wayn.com | 260 | 308,000 | 0.08 |
| eBookers.com | 100 | 56,000 | 0.18 |
| Priceline | 2,790 | 651,000 | 0.43 |
| Expedia.co.uk | 1,300 | 274,000 | 0.47 |
| Thomson.co.uk | 62 | 12,400 | 0.50 |
| boo.com | 1,840 | 302,000 | 0.61 |
| Easyjet.com | 23 | 3,610 | 0.64 |
| ThomasCook.com | 159 | 19,900 | 0.80 |
| Lastminute.com | 13,500 | 1,620,000 | 0.83 |
| VisitBritain.com | 3,860 | 376,000 | 1.03 |
| Opodo.co.uk | 449 | 19,700 | 2.28 |
| Travelocity.com | 10,400 | 346,000 | 3.01 |
| TravelSupermarket.com | 294 | 9,000 | 3.27 |
| FlyBmi.com | 149 | 2,640 | 5.64 |
| Virgin-Atlantic.com | 61 | 1,060 | 5.75 |
| XL.com | 58 | 859 | 6.75 |
| Hilton.com | 18,600 | 172,000 | 10.81 |
| Orbitz.com | 21,800 | 110,000 | 19.82 |
| MyTravel.com | 2,980 | 10,500 | 28.38 |
| NationalRail (UK) | 3,180 | 10,200 | 31.18 |
| firstchoice.co.uk | 408 | 1,240 | 32.90 |
| Ryanair.com | 9,720 | 15,500 | 62.71 |
My methodology:
The two page counts were calculated from pages listed in the Google system yesterday.
Pages with at least one ”click here” mention on were counted by running a search using:
allintext: “click here” site:domain.com
(change the domain to your domain, minus the www, and leave the quotes as they are)
Total pages for a website were calculated by searching:
site:domain.com
(change the domain to your domain, minus the www)
You can therefore run the same test on your site - and compare it to the table above….
Findings
Obviously this isn’t totally scientific…….but I think we have enough results to observe a few trends:
- The websites with the lowest proportion of pages that have the term “click here” on are recently produced, well managed, successful, websites. They tend to be “web only” style companies.
- The websites with the greatest proportion of “click here” links are less successful as websites (although of course I don’t have actual data about website success!). Interesting that FirstChoice, MyTravel, National Rail are in this field. These websites tend to come from “traditional” companies who have websites - rather than companies mainly focussed around their website.
As an aside, lets look at the total page count for second….
Another finding, but unrelated, is just how many pages the leading travel websites have. We are talking several hundred thousand pages in order to be successful.
MyTravel.com, Thomson and FirstChoice.co.uk all seem to be lagging behind - with just a few thousand pages listed in Google. This maybe because they believe that every page has to be fully designed and crafted - in order to protect branding…. but other companies are happy just to generate volume of pages because they know that page volume correlates strongly to sales volume.
Airlines also struggle with increasing page count - as they only have limited products that can be presented on different pages.
Small tour operators consider a website with a few hundred pages to be large - but that number just isn’t good enough nowadays.
Summary
I believe that doing a “click here” test can act as a canary to demonstrate whether a website is well managed or not. Hypothesis proven.
(For those of you still wondering what a Canary is…. well a Canary is a bird. They used to be taken down coal mines - and if the Canary dies - you know there is gas there…. and the humans should leave…. a canary is therefore something that can be used as a tell tale for factors you can’t see)
(We did test Cheapflights.com and TripAdvisor…. but Google was reporting numbers that didn’t make sense to me…. so I have excluded them)
Final thought…… if you want to see what browsing the web could be like without the click….. take a look at this very interesting flash experiment…..DontClickIt.
Personal request - I need your feedback!
Lastly, a personal request…. if you enjoy this kind of research being made available for free (and without adverts) - then please write a comment below - or link to this post - or interact in some other way. I used to research and publish travel webdesign research a few years back - and sell findings at 100 GBP (200 USD) a report to a list of about 100 travel company clients…. and I enjoy publishing this much shorter type research for everyone to use - as long as people think it is helpful. If no one wants it…. I will get back to running my business (which my clients will appreciate!) - and just writing “rants” on this blog…. (a “rant” post takes about half an hour - but this post today took about 4 hours)…..
If you want to be notified next time something is published sign up for email alerts or subscribe to the RSS feed. Thank you for reading!
Hi Alex,
Well, as both a client and a reader of your blog, I’m a bit torn.
I do find these posts useful and interesting, and would like you to continue them - particularly if my alternative is to pay you for them
Of course, I’m also keen to see more developments in TourCMS.
Have you thought about cloning yourself ?
Ralph,
Uncover the World
You are quite right the use of ‘click here’ doesn’t help users or search engines. To prove how annoying it can be go turn on your screen reader and listen to how much sense badly formed anchor text makes. With every wince you are missing an SEO trick.
With a consistent approach to link text using plain contextual language it is quick to build up a SEO friendly meshing of your pages. Even more powerful if you can get links on your site and those pointing to it from external sources to all use the same language.
However your canary test falls down, like so many other purely automated means of web measurement, by ignoring the context of the links. For example the First Choice site performs badly with your test where the use of click here is limited to one function of the site - a season selector. This page and its dynamic content makes sense to search engines and screen readers if heard/spidered in the context of the whole page.
The solution: keep the human carrying the canary.
Interesting test, however it’s not all that scientific as you correctly state.
allintext:’click here’ only shows where the text in a page contains ‘click here’, to specify only anchor text use allinanchor:’click here’.
Here are some links that relate….
Blog post from Travolution - including comments from travel companies who have, as a result of this blog post, removed “click here” from their sites.
http://travolution.blogspot.com/2007/09/click-here-to-go-straight-to-online.html
Marketing Sherpa - how changing from “click here” in email raised clicks by 8.53%
http://www.marketingsherpa.com/article.php?ident=30124
CopyBlogger - some feedback and conversation regarding the Marketing Sherpa results
http://www.copyblogger.com/click-here
I have also coined the new term a “click hero” - which is someone who tries to convince others that “click here” is inappropriate
Very interesting article.
I converted from using “click here” like 3-4 years ago and never came back. Nowadays, I consider that a site filled with “click here” is badly designed and make a mental note to not visit it again.
I think the technique used in this article could be broadened to other websites and other metrics (such as pagerank).
[…] Eine weitere interessante Entdeckung machte kürzlich Alex Brainbridge. Er geht der Frage nach inwieweit man das Vorhandensein von “hier klicken”-Links auf einer Webseite mit der Qualität und Aktualität dieser Seite in Relation setzen kann. Oder anders gesagt: können diese Links ein Indikator für veraltete und/oder schlecht gemanagte Seiten sein. Er kommt zu dem Ergebnis, dass die Seiten mit der geringsten “hier klicken”-Dichte diejenigen sind, die nach modernen Gesichtspunkten erstellt, gut gemanaged und erfolgreich sind. […]
[…] The post “Does Telling Someone to “Click Here” Actually Matter?” on Copyblogger reopens the debate about “Click Here” links. Just when we thought click here links were bound to disappear, and only amateur websites keep using them, someone says we should use “click here” again because people would actually click more on them. Fortunately, other people are proving otherwise (e.g. The “Click here” canary - judge a website in 2 Google searches or Jakob Nielsen’s Top Ten Web Design Mistakes of 2005), not the least because of accessibility issues. Of course, nothing’s wrong with an occasional “Click here to read the original post on Copyblogger“, because that’s saying very clear what will happen. But that’s something else than all the misuses of “Click here” you get to see in various places on the web. […]
[…] The “Click here” canary - judge a website in 2 Google searches (Musings on travel ecommerce) (tags: text usability online marketing research interface design) […]