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How can I develop my blog?

If you develop a blog post out of a conversation started on Quora, should you link a citation back to the Quora question?

  • This addresses a much larger issue of attribution in blogging but I am curious how people think about this with regard to Quora.  Do you link or quote Quora question/answers?  Is it acceptable to summarize a series of answers or should you attribute specific points to specific answerers? This is a follow-up question to .

  • Answer:

    This goes all the way back to your high-school term-paper-days, and the answer is uneqivocal: If you are quoting anyone, give full credit to the source. Online, yes, this means a link. If you are significantly inspired by anyone, give full credit to the source. Basically your ideas quoted them, so to speak, even if your exact words didn't. So if you shape your post based on a question and answers here (or elsewhere online), yes again, this means give a link. On the other hand, if your read a question and it made you think, "Wow, I could take this to a whole different place"—in other words, if you thought *of* something you wouldn't have otherwise, but your post wasn't really shaped by what you read, then no, in that case you are not obligated to explain your source of inspiration, any more than if you overheard half a conversation at the grocery store and it made you think of a post idea. If it were me, though, I'd probably link to the question at Quora that inspired me, for 's reasons and because it is good www-karma. Me? I've written posts at Maximum Customer Experience twice based on quotations from Quora (including this morning, coincidentally), and happily linked back to the original question, with the name of the answerer, in each case, like this: "The quotation." —Full Name of Answerer, Link to question title, on http://Quora.com You'll never go wrong if you've got a little remaining knowledge of how citations used to be done back in those term-paper-days.

Anonymous at Quora Visit the source

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Yes, that's just good manners and it doesn't hurt your SEO either.

Janet Fouts

It depends. I think if you post a question on Quora specifically to get feedback for a blog post and you write that blog post without quoting anyone's answers then you are probably safe on legal and ethical grounds. On the other hand, if you quote an answer or a question written by someone else and use it as a catalyst for your blog post then you should probably link to the Quora question and give attribution to the proper sources.

Allen Taylor

There are a number of reasons you should link back to Quora (and link a Quora answer to your blog article). 1. It's good attribution ethics. 2. It's good SEO for your blog. 3. It's good promotion for your blog. 4. It's good for establishing context for the reader.

Alan Eggleston

Shouldn't you always attribute Answers? I used the WordPress share link thinking it would attribute an Answer automatically like, for instance, 'Share on Posterous' does, but it merely reproduced the Answer without any attribution or links. Sharp lesson learned! As far as your first point goes, I think you should be clear from the start about such a Question's purpose and how you intend to use the Answers.

Jeremy Dent

If you quote the original source or inspiration for the post, then absolutely you should attribute your answers to that source, especially if you would like to be seen as a trusted/valuable contributor to a community (and as Alan has pointed out this is great SEO to link back). Let the original source/sources know you are quoting them. They will appreciate your mentioning them as a source and in return will most likely link to your post from their social media channels or site, giving your article a larger viewing audience.

JoAnn Stadtmueller

I agree with 's message. I believe it's more practical to link back to Quora, or at least mention the source of your idea. Sometimes, I think linking back isn't necessary, since if you will come up with an idea from the question, it's yours. Just remember to link back if the source of your blog's information is on another website or resource. Example, if I quote from Martin Lindstrom, I should be courteous to place his link, like this: http://www.martinlindstrom.com. Simple as that.

Alexis Trinidad

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