Notes on building a website that gets linked

When I decide to link to a word's meaning and origin — something I'm doing more and more these days, in response to a lot of "thumbs up" email from China and other countries where bookofjoe readers are not native English speakers (you do understand, don't you, that from the get-go my goal has been total world domination? But I digress...) — it's not a simple matter of going to onelook.com and putting the word in the search box.

Well, that's how it begins, but not how it ends.

Usually the site gives me a list of online dictionaries to choose from.

The link I end up using is the one that's "quietest" — that is, with the smallest irritation factor — as long as its definition appears on the mark.

When a site has flashing or moving stuff on it (Encarta, you know who I'm talking about) I try not to bother you with it: I mean, I've felt your pain, so why should you have to?

That's my job, isn't it, to insulate you from the dross and give you only the gold?

But I digress.

Sites I avoid like the plague are those that put pop-ups on the screen.

That's why, although the American Heritage dictionary is wonderful, it rarely features here: almost every definition is obscured by some pop-up ad.

And that's all I have to say about that.