[crazygringo]

This is a fantastic article, and the first time I've ever come across anything addressing these issues.

The only thing I don't entirely agree with is:

1) Wrong: "first Falling Bear gets run over" 2) Right: "first Falling Bear gets run over"

I think they're just different. In the first case, I expect a link to to a photo of Falling Bear as he's getting run over. In the second case, I expect a link to a page on Falling Bear, that may have nothing to do with when he was run over.

But I think the distinction is important to make.

[dredmorbius]

I'd tag the whole phrase. It's not "Falling Bear" and it's not "gets run over", it's "Falling bear gets run over". That creates a rather large link, but, hey! Fitt's Law and SEO!

[revelation]

I think Wikipedia has done a first class job of destroying peoples trust into "nouns as links". They mention a blog entry in a Wikipedia article, but of course clicking blog just takes you to the Wikipedia article on blogs, instead of the actual blog in question (which you then have to find through the references).

Guaranteed confusion every time.

[danso]

I bet the more common and more frustrating experience has been the ad services that auto-inject hover-ads into common nouns, such as "loans" or "books"

[dantheman0207]

Their point is that the link anchor should describe what's happening at the endpoint. I agree, a generic noun doesn't always describe it. "Falling Bear" doesn't say the same thing as "Falling Bear getting run over."

From Aristotle to OOP, there's a long history of over-reliance on nouns to describe the world around us. Unfortunately a full and nuanced description requires an explanation of both object and action.

[thirdsun]

Exactly - I prefer links on the verbs when it comes to referencing individual events. Nouns should be used for more general information concerning the topic that isn't necessarily related to a particular incident/event.

[loup-vaillant]

One thing I noticed about this example is how links are also emphasisers. Emphasising the nouns instead of verbs made this paragraph easier to read for me.