Apparently all I do on the internet is stalk Josh Malina.
Last time, I used his wife’s online store as an example of nothing above the fold. My latest internet irritation is the lack of related links in his Entertainment Weekly Scandal recap posts. Behold my most recent Friday night:
- Watch Scandal.
- Search for recaps on Scandal.
- Find Josh Malina and Scott Foley’s latest blog post.
- Want more!
- Can’t find more.
- Write this post.
It all started out pretty promising. You’re probably starting to get the hint that if I see Josh Malina’s name, I’m clicking (the power of a brand in search results compelling a click):
And I have to say, if you’re a Scandal fan, you really should be reading these weekly recaps from Josh Malina and Scott Foley.
But here’s the problem. There’s no way to get from one recap to any of the others. Tons of space is devoted to an intro at the beginning of each post that lets you know they do these every week, but even that blurb doesn’t have a link to the full list!
There’s a “related links” module on the left that pulls in anything tagged with “Scandal”, which might include another of these recaps, but might not.
The linked topic above the headline is to “Shondaland”:
Which brings you to a topic page with no organization at all. It’s not even grouped by show, much less this specific blog series.
Sure, I like Josh Malina and all, but enough to wade through this page?
Even worse, the “Scandal” tag near the top of the article links to the “Shondaland” page too, not a page with only Scandal-related items.
If I scroll all the way down to the end of the page and I’m very obsessed with Josh Malina, I might notice the “Folina” tag in tiny font and if I click on that, I am rewarded with a list of all of these recaps. But am I that obsessed? (OK, fine. Yes. But most audiences aren’t so dedicated.)
It’s weird to me how many sites have this set up. Why is everyone so against breadcrumbs and topic page links? Have we given up on taxonomy because it’s too hard? Would it be so uncool for this Vice article to have a link somewhere to the “Space” category landing page?
You can even give your categories clever names (although I would still ask why? can’t “annals of transport” just be “transportation”), just include a link near the headline like this New Yorker article:
Or better yet, give me a boring ‘ole breadcrumb.
You want me to stick around and load more pages, right?
