I see some sites list long list of urls as text url and not as hyperlink url. I mean text url most likely do not count for much by Google http://www.webmasterworld.com/search_engine_promotion/3721254.htm What is the rationale for that? Thanks
this means that the site does not automatically detect links in text however you can write your link this way <a href="http://url....">Site Name</a>
And sometimes people just don't want to give away a link. Why should I give out a free link to cnn.com or anybody else just because I mentioned them in a forum comment? Sometimes I just feel stingy.
Sometimes the people that do that are just ignorant. Yes, I am being blunt. But it is the truth. Most of the time I see links like that, it is from obviously new bloggers who do not know any better. Another possibility is that the list of links was copied as text from another blog entry or forum post, and then pasted into their article/webpage. @MrDee - as for your being stingy with CNN.com, I subscribe to the theory of "you are what you link". If the link is relative to the content, it only reinforces said content. This, after all, is how authority websites get recognized ... is it not? Therefore, not linking out can be detrimental to your website.
The only time I type it out like that is if it is my own email address, so that someone can read it and enter it in, but bots won't pick it up as an email to add to their spam list.
You are sadly mistaken if a bot would not pick up on that. Email addresses that are anchor linked, straight text like you suggested, or nestled in some Meta tag in the Head section are easily identifiable to a bot and harvested. Should use javascript to obfuscate the email address.