One Link Per Line

Inline links, or masked links, are very common. In markdown documents they're denoted with the syntax [text](link).

I haven't written an inline masked link in years. Putting each link on its own line simplifies your documents, improves clarity, and drastically improves reader experience.

Gemtext

In 2020 and 2021, the Gemini Protocol caught my attention with its beautiful simplicity. Gemini's promise of a simpler internet included a text-format called Gemtext.

One of the main restrictions in Gemtext, compared to Markdown, is that links must be on their own line. The syntax for a Gemtext link looks like:

=> https://example.com Example Website Link

I don't use Gemini very often anymore. I now write blog posts in an (awful) rich text editor provided by Ghost (the CMS I use). However, my love for putting links on their own lines has not faded.

Fundamentally, links work better when they stand alone, with room to breathe, instead of being placed inside of blocks of text.

Bad inline links

Once you start noticing them, bad inline links are everywhere. They're not impossible to use well, but they're frequently awkward.

"Click here"

Tap or click here in order to unsubscribe from this mailing list.

This example attempts to force a link into a predicate-object sentence. The author doesn't actually think I need to be told how to use a link. The single-word "here" is also a small touch target. Putting the link on its own line fixes these problems by allowing it to be a stand-alone phrase. For example:

Unsubscribe from this mailing list

Notifications Settings

Ambiguous Links

Steve Jobs would go on to found a new technology company the very next year.

Where does this link go? Is it a news story or a Wikipedia page? What company is it referring to?

If I, as a reader, know from context what company this is referring to, then linking to the Wikipedia page for that company doesn't help me. On the other hand, if I don't know what company it's referring to, then I shouldn't have to click (or hover or long-press) the link to find out.

In this example, the link is being used as a side-channel to communicate additional information that doesn't exist in the actual text. If we put the information in the text, then the link is unnecessary.

Steve Jobs would go on to found a new technology company, NeXT, the very next year.

Lists of Links

Solderpunk (the creator of Gemini), explains the alternative.

Using a system of text lines and link lines ... tends to result in very clean document layouts. It encourages including only the most important or relevant links, organising links into lists which group related links together, and allows you to give each link a maximally descriptive label without having to worry about whether or not that label fits naturally into the flow of your main text. It takes some getting used to, but it's worth it.

Project Gemini FAQ: Why doesn't text/gemini have support for inline links?

In Gemtext every line is either plain text or a link. At first this seems like an arbitrary or technical restriction, but as Solderpunk explains, this was an intentional decision to improve readability of text and ease of browsing links, inspired by Gemini's predecessor, Gopher.

Gopher menus exert the same influence, and the ease of navigating a Gopherhole is something that lots of Gopher users appreciate and which it was considered worthwhile carrying forward into Gemini. It's not an arbitrary limitation for the sake of toughness, it really bears fruit.

Conclusion

Every link is a decision point for your readers—they can either click it or continue reading. For that reason, it makes sense to pull links out of the flow of your sentences. If a link doesn't warrant being highlighted in this way, then it likely isn't necessary, and removing it entirely may make your document easier to read.

Giving readers a clear description of what a link is makes it easy for them to decide whether to click it. If you expect the reader to follow a given link, then you should provide a break in the document where they can stop reading and later return. On the other hand, if you don't intend a link to be clicked, putting it on its own line ensures the link doesn't interrupt the text. Giving the link its own space makes it easier for the reader to identify the "boring" link and skip over it.

I have been following this rule for a couple of years, in blog posts, Slack messages, comments, and other documents I write. I find it easy to do, and it frequently improves the document structure.