Plain text links from a user perspective are not nearly that ambivalent. Instead of clicking on the link to open it, users either have to copy and paste it or use other means to open it in their favorite web browser. This means that it will take longer to open those links.

The Firefox Internet browser has a nice feature that can be used to open non-HTML links. Just select the link text, right-click it and select to open the link in a new tab. The browser can identify plain text links automatically to display those options in the context menu.

While that’s a great workaround if you encounter those links on an irregular basis, it may become an annoyance if you happen to encounter plain text links regularly.

That’s where the free userscript Linkify comes into play. The script turns plain text links automatically into clickable HTML links on all http pages (it is not working on https websites).

The script supports http, https, ftp and email address links that are displayed in plain text instead of the HTML code version.

This is the plain text link of the screenshot above.

And this is the very same link after installation of the userscript.

As you can see, the script has modified the plain text link on page load and turned it into a clickable link.

I have tested Linkify Plus under Firefox with Scriptish installed. It is likely that the script will also work under different web browsers, Opera or Chrome for instance. Please note that Linkify Plus can only work its magic if JavaScript is enabled for the particular website you are visiting.

You can install Linkify Plus directly from the official userscripts website.

This extension converts any unlinked url into one that can be clicked as if it was a valid link. The only difference is that urls that have been converted by the Text Link extension have to be double-clicked to be loaded. It should also be noted that the Text Link extension does not modify the links in any way, it simply provides the double-click functionality.

This means, a non linked url will not be shown as a link in the usual form. This might be confusing at the beginning but it soon sorts itself out. Just double-click that url and it will be loaded just fine. The behavior can be changed in the options. By default a double-clicked url will be loaded in the same tab for instance which most users won’t like that much.

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Text Link Extension

Text Link Ads is a service that is very attractive for small websites that have at least a pagerank of 4. If you do not know your pagerank you can look it up at blogflux. Once accepted into text-link-ads you have to edit a few settings, add a description for instance and define the maximum amount of ads you want to show on your website. The last step would be to paste the code into your website.

Plugins exist for many known plattforms like WordPress or Blogger but generic php code that works on every website can be used as well.

As I said the main advantage is the fact that your visitor level is not that important and a pagerank of 4 can be achieve pretty quickly by submitting the site to some directories and search engines. Earnings vary according to some factors including pagerank, backlinks and Alexa ranking.

You can use a free tool to check your site and see how much you approximately would earn from Text Link Ads. Just enter your url and click on the placement to see how much it could be. This is of course not a fix value.

I guess most PR4 sites will gain about $7,50 per link which is probably way more than they would earn with Google Adsense.

I would like to conclude this article with some expert tips. Sites grow over time and you probably have wondered what happens if your pagerank or backlinks rise to a higher level, will you automatically earn more ? The answer is no. This is one of the flaws in the system if you ask me.

You do have to contact the Text Link Ads team and ask them to raise the price that they demand for the links on your website. They react pretty quickly on those inquiries and any new link will be sold for the higher price. You can also ask them to remove links that still pay the old price. If you have started with $7,50 for instance and someone bought a link at that time he will still pay $7,50 even if your price is now at $30.

So, if you can’t change a setting by yourself call them and ask them. They will help you out.

I would suggest to join the Text Link Ads service if your website meets the requirement.