Linking policies are stupid, but Boing Boing’s hack (no site with a linking policy, other than this one, may link to BB) doesn’t seem like the right response, despite a similarity to the GPL hack.

Instead of demanding that do-not-link-to-me sites not link to anti-link-policy-folk, it makes sense to me to do what the former ask, as the policy in question is self-defeating — inbound links are all important, ask any SEO huckster. However, antis need to go further, as simply not doing what do-not-link-to-me sites stupidly do not want us to do isn’t exactly a roof raising call to action.

The next step is to create a links-that-don’t-want-to-be clearinghouse for the purpose of destroying whatever GoogleJuice the foolish sites may have. So imagine a site with a do-not-link-to-me policy, example.com. Sites that would otherwise link to a page on example.com should instead prefix their link with http://stupidlinkpolicy.net/, e.g., http://stupidlinkpolicy.net/http://example.com/foo/bar.html. The content at this last URL would include the title and a page rank boosting summary of the content at http://example.com/foo/bar.html and an explanation of why the user hasn’t landed at the site they probably expected. If example.com ever removes its stupid linking policy, stupidlinkpolicy.net would redirect requests for http://stupidlinkpolicy.net/http://example.com/foo/bar.html to http://example.com/foo/bar.html.

A stupid link policy clearinghouse of this sort would be very easy to create, lots of work to maintain. Someone should do it. :-)

I realize that this doesn’t affirm the right to link whatever stupid link policies may say. Perhaps in order to do this and as a convenience to hapless searchers the clearinghouse itself would link to the pages it discusses, though via redirects so as to still withold juice.