Putting Users on the Right Path: Internal and External Linking

Links help guide users to relevant information, create logical associations, and build ecosystems of knowledge. They also help search engines understand your page exists in relation to the rest of olemiss.edu and to any other page you link out to. 

There are two types of links we have to worry about:

If you'd like to take a link related deep-dive, check out our Frequently Asked Questions.

External links and Cascade

External links are any links that send users away from olemiss.edu. You may want to link to different educational, governmental, or accrediting sites (among others), all of those will be external links. 

  • External links offer a larger breadth of knowledge for the user. It can help them discover new information and opportunities, or help them understand and complete different steps in a task (like seeking licensure in specific fields or registering for a group, conference, or event). 

How to use external links

Like internal links, there are number of different ways to add an external link to a page. While each of those processes may start slightly differently from each other, the process is ultimately the same. 

  • For our purposes here, we'll go over how to use an external link in a WYSIWYG.
Adding an external link inside a WYSIWYG

Luckily, external links are extremely easy to do in Cascade. 

Here's the step-by-step:

  1. Highlight the text you'd like to link from (e.g., the anchor text) and then go to the WYSIWYG toolbar and click on the link icon (in the left of the red circle).  
    linking-wysiwyg-toolbar-1.png
  2. Once you've clicked on the link icon you'll see the following "Insert Link" pop-up window. Once there, "Internal Link" will be automatically selected. Click "External Link" and then paste or type the url in the "Link Source" field. 
    External Link in the WYSIWYG
  3. Once you've completed these steps, click "OK" at the bottom right hand corner of the "Insert Link" pop-up window.

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External links and Cascade

External links are any links that send users away from olemiss.edu. You may want to link to different educational, governmental, or accrediting sites (among others), all of those will be external links. 

  • External links offer a larger breadth of knowledge for the user. It can help them discover new information and opportunities, or help them understand and complete different steps in a task (like seeking licensure in specific fields or registering for a group, conference, or event). 

How to use external links

Like internal links, there are number of different ways to add an external link to a page. While each of those processes may start slightly differently from each other, the process is ultimately the same. 

  • For our purposes here, we'll go over how to use an external link in a WYSIWYG.
Adding an external link inside a WYSIWYG

Luckily, external links are extremely easy to do in Cascade. 

Here's the step-by-step:

  1. Highlight the text you'd like to link from (e.g., the anchor text) and then go to the WYSIWYG toolbar and click on the link icon (in the left of the red circle).  
    linking-wysiwyg-toolbar-1.png
  2. Once you've clicked on the link icon you'll see the following "Insert Link" pop-up window. Once there, "Internal Link" will be automatically selected. Click "External Link" and then paste or type the url in the "Link Source" field. 
    External Link in the WYSIWYG
  3. Once you've completed these steps, click "OK" at the bottom right hand corner of the "Insert Link" pop-up window.

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