Posting Links on HealthUnlocked

When members post links on HealthUnlocked, the platform itself changes their colour to blue/cyan and shrinks the links. It ends up that, except for the very shortest of links, you cannot see where the link is pointing. Any characters beyond about 24 change to an ellipsis (three dots - ...)  

If you post just the link, then members might have little or no idea why they should click on it.

I've produced a simple image below which shows what you can do to help members.

First example, just a few words which can provide some sort of content.

This is a link to something:

https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/underactive-thyroid-hypothyroidism/

Second, a few words of context AND a title - you can often take the words form the actual page to which you are linking:

This a better link:

NHS Conditions

Overview - Underactive thyroid (hypothyroidism)

https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/underactive-thyroid-hypothyroidism/

Third, the same words, but with some added formatting. In this example, I have formatted them all as italic. And then also emboldened some of them.

You can format by selecting the text you want to format and then clicking on the letters at the bottom of the post/reply box - B for bold, I for italic or U for underscore - or combine them.

.

This is an even better link:

NHS Conditions

Overview - Underactive thyroid (hypothyroidism)

https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/underactive-thyroid-hypothyroidism/

The link examples as they appear when posted. In all three, the link has been truncated.

Don't worry. Nothing awful will happen if you do not do this (or your interpretation of this). But we'd probably find more members who are interested do click on the links if they are made more obvious. And fewer who really are not interested will feel frustrated that they have clicked on another link and wasted their time and effort.

Also, you don't have to confine yourself to the heading. Sometimes it can be helpful to include the first paragraph, or the abstract, or the summary.

Once you have done this once or twice, it really shouldn't take much time or effort to add these helpful features.