Naked URL
A link whose visible text is simply the address itself, with no descriptive words wrapped around it.
Analogy Mental model
It is like giving someone a street address instead of a shop name. Less inviting, but impossible to misread.
In practice What you actually do
Expect bare URLs in bylines, press mentions, citation lists, and forum posts where the platform auto-links whatever looks like a domain. That share needs no correction. When you control the placement, a descriptive phrase usually serves the reader better than the raw address.
Where people get burned Pitfalls
An all-naked-URL profile suggests nobody cared enough to describe what they were linking to. An all-exact-match profile suggests somebody cared far too much. Both are readable as signals.
This entry was written in English from the Chinese original, not machine-translated. Read the Chinese version →