Citing online source on republication

On republication (or publication of translations) of a material from an other site, it’s a rule to specify clickable link to source of the material.

There are two main ways to specify link to source:

• link to home page of source site;
• link to the same material on source site.

Link to home page of source site is useless for user and makes sense only from the viewpoint of search engine optimization of source site: search engines usually makes more account of link to home page then link to any other page of the same site.

On the contrary, direct link to source material itself is useful and usable for user, because it allows him:

• receive evidence that specified source is really the source;
• read original author’s material in form reliably undistorted during republication;
• after a time, still be able to get current information, since, unlike republication, article on author’s site can potentially be updated on a regular basis;
• boomark original material without need for manual searching it on source site or, all the more, without need for bookmarking link to something that knowingly is republication.

So, on a site made for humans, it makes sense on republication to specify link not to home page of source site, but to original page itself.