I was thinking about how I’ve received numerous links to my posts from various bloggers, yet I can’t remember the last time I’ve found a traditional webmaster (non blogger) that has linked to one of my other websites. Why is that?
Are webmasters the stingy kids that stick to themselves and play in their own little world passing out links to others only in exchange for something in return? Meanwhile the bloggers are social butterflies - linking to other bloggers content without some form of an agreement set up for something in return?
Perhaps it’s the social aspect of blogging and how it’s so easy to find people that have linked to your content that drives the link loving behavior of blogging? Or perhaps it’s something more simple than that - if you link to another blog post it’ll eventually be moved off the front page of your blog?
I think this is the first post I’ve written where the number of sentences that ended with question marks outpaced those without, but I’m interested to hear your thoughts. 
Why do bloggers freely hand out links whereas traditional webmasters do not? Do you even agree with that statement?
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I agree that bloggers are more likely to give out a link. But again its not all bloggers, some use strictly nofollow even on their blogrolls and will only sell links. Saything that these are probably people who blog for profit and have come up under the traditional web master ways.
If you find someone who has just figured out how to blog, has no real desire to learn web design and just like to write I think you are more likely to get a link.
I agree with you on this on Chris, but non blogs, are not linking most likely to a lot of sites, with blogging its kinda different though!
It’s simply easier and makes more sense for a blogger then a “static site” owner. You blog constantly as is its nature, so linking to other bloggers for reference or whatever just comes naturally.
Statics tend to only link with other relevant statics….these you find in their reciprocal “link” pages.
I guess it has to do with the number of pages you write every week. Static pages are not updated that often I guess so it is normal they link out less.
I guess it also the ‘culture’ of bloging to do this: everybody puts up a lot of links, so one should also do this.
Just a few random thoughts.
[...] Bloggers Love to Link Websmasters do Not - Chrisguthrie.com [...]
I agree with oliver, linking to good articles is blogging culture. This shows that you write a good smart article.
I’m not sure with my answer but I think webmasters have a different set of SEO techniques and values compared to us bloggers who publishes a lot of pages compared to them. I’m hearing some old SEO ideas which constantly recurs in some forums these days about having a page that bleeds pagerank to death because of too much links in it. That’s why they are very picky about linking out.
I think the whole nature of a blog has something to do with it. Blogs are very much about conversation, and often those conversations either respond to something on another blog or site, or they’re actually with another blog or site.
That said, I run a number of content, non-blog sites and although I don’t have as many places where links come up, I don’t hesitate to link to valuable resources when they fit in my content.
It looks like most people agree that Bloggers link out due to the constantly changing dynamic of the Blog as opposed to linking out from traditional static sites.
I think I agree too
There’s not much of a comparison since traditional webmaster are all but dead, and not what they used to be. I have been creating and maintaining sites as a webmaster since 1995. But as far as I know, I don’t have a single “static” web site left. If the ones that aren’t “blogs” I run with blogging software or a CMS - so IMHO static sites are dead, unless you’re an affiliate marketer with a bunch of landing pages selling specific products. I think even the title “webmaster” isn’t really used anymore.