External Links in Site Navigation

waffles · 07-27-2006, 06:30 AM

I know, it's an instant 'Don't Do.' And generally I'd agree with you. But hear my case and let's decide if I need to change something.

The radio people at my school hae a habit of playing around. This usually results in things being changed. So they set up a page on the school's official radio site that has a link to the stream. They also want people to link directly to that because it's the official page and should be branded as such. [shrug] Whatever. Their playing around is good enough for me.

In my navigation I have a link to this page. That button that says 'Off For the Summer' is it.

I've tried cheating and just including that page. If I include it in my content area I get this. If I lose the look of my site alltogether I get this. I know the images don't work, but I could get those without a problem.

The only problem is that I don't want to flat out steal their content. Especially since there's no way I can have their menu work and always keep the current link for the stream that I can think of right now.

Normally I really discourage people from having external links in the navigation. But for this one, it's part of the show, but not the site. When it's in the navigation it's on every page. And I really like the idea of knowing they can start to listen no matter what page their on.

So did we find a case where external linking is acceptable? Or is it another in a long line of times when it should be gotten rid of?