Who Wins 'Click Here'
---------------------

The w3c_, the nominal leader of web standards, has a `recommendation against`_ using *click here* or *here* as the text for links on web pages.  In addition to the good reasons they provide, there's google to consider.  Google assigns *page rank* to web sites based on, among a great many other things, the text used in links to that page.  When you link to https://ry4an.org/ with *ry4an* as the link text I get more closely associated with the term *ry4an* in google's rankings. However, when you link to a page using generic link text, such as *here* or *click here* you're not really helping anyone to find anything any easier.

That said I wondered who was winning the battles for google's *here* and *click here* turf.  To find out I took the top entries for each and then googled them with both *click here* and *here*.  Here's the resulting table.

===================  ====  ============  ====  ==========
Phrase               Here                "Click Here" 
-------------------  ------------------  ----------------
Measure              Rank  Hits          Rank  Hits       
-------------------  ----  ------------  ----  ----------
Adobe                1     14,300,000    1     11,000,000 
QuickTime            2     3,560,000     2     1,830,000  
"Real Player"        3     1,720,000     4     900,000    
"Internet Explorer"  4     13,500,000    3     7,940,000  
MapQuest             5     1,970,000     5     1,130,000  
ShockWave            7     1,240,000     6     564,000    
===================  ====  ============  ====  ==========

So, what can we conclude from these numbers?  Nothing at all.  They provide only an aggregate of popularity, web design savvy, and a bunch of other unidentified factors.  But, there they are just the same.


.. _w3c: http://www.w3.org/

.. _recommendation against: http://www.w3.org/QA/Tips/noClickHere



.. date: 1107496800
.. tags: funny