Special offer. See more information about Outbyte and uninstall instructions. Please review EULA and Privacy policy.

iTechGuides is reader-supported. When you buy through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. Learn more

In a small sample reported by Listwright, all 22 external links in DEV article bodies appeared in anonymously fetched page HTML, while only 3 of 47 comments containing one external link appeared there. The figures describe different parts of DEV pages—not a like-for-like link test—and do not establish a site-wide rule or prove that external links caused comments to be hidden.

What the 22/22 and 3/47 figures mean

Listwright’s DEV post, published September 22, 2026, reports checks conducted on September 21 and 22. The 22/22 figure counts external links in article bodies that appeared in the anonymously fetched article pages. The 3/47 figure counts comments containing one external link that appeared in those pages’ HTML for a logged-out reader. They are different content surfaces and different denominators, so the figures should not be read as a controlled comparison of equivalent links. Read Listwright’s post on DEV.

The post says it examined 537 comments across 19 articles. It compared the public comment tree with the HTML returned when each article page was fetched without cookies or a signed-in session. Its reported results were:

Special offer. See more information about Outbyte and uninstall instructions. Please review EULA and Privacy policy.
Comment category Rendered in anonymous page HTML
No outbound link 194 of 490
One link to DEV 21 of 84
One link to an external destination 3 of 47
Two or more links 0 of 16

These are counts reported by the post, not independently reproduced measurements. The pattern shows a lower anonymous rendering rate in the sampled comments that contained external links, but it does not show why those comments were missing or whether the same pattern holds across DEV generally. Listwright’s post describes the sample and method.

What a logged-out reader could—and could not—see

According to the post, comments absent from the anonymous page response were not merely collapsed or positioned below the fold: their comment anchors were missing from that returned HTML. A public comment-tree entry and an anonymous page response therefore did not always contain the same visible content in this sample.

Listwright says it checked two possible alternative explanations: comparing only top-level comments and comparing comment length. The post also describes two comments by the same account in the same thread—one with a Stripe link and one without—that had different subsequent anonymous visibility. These checks are author-reported observations, not a controlled experiment; they cannot isolate the effect of a link from other possible factors.

Rank #2
Sale
HTML and CSS: Design and Build Websites
  • HTML CSS Design and Build Web Sites
  • Comes with secure packaging
  • It can be a gift option

The sign-in notice reported on affected pages

Listwright reproduces this notice from the pages it checked: “Some comments may only be visible to logged-in visitors. Sign in to view all comments.” The post says the notice appeared on all 19 of the articles where comments were missing and on none of the pages rendered in full. That wording and count are attributed to the post; they do not independently confirm that the notice is universal or still current.

Special offer. See more information about Outbyte and uninstall instructions. Please review EULA and Privacy policy.

How to check an article page yourself

Listwright’s suggested check compares a public comment-tree response with the article page HTML fetched without signing in. It requires the article’s ID and the comment ID code. The method shows what appeared in those responses at the time of the check; it does not reveal why an item is absent.

  1. Fetch the article page anonymously. Use a request without cookies or a logged-in session and save the returned HTML.
  2. Fetch its public comment tree. Request /api/comments?a_id=<your article id>, replacing the placeholder with the article ID.
  3. Compare each comment anchor. For a comment in the tree, look for its /comment/<id_code> anchor in the saved article HTML.
  4. Interpret a mismatch narrowly. If the comment is in the tree but its anchor is absent from the anonymous HTML, it was not shown in that page response. That alone does not establish the platform’s reason or predict what another reader will see.

The reproduction approach and its interpretation are described in Listwright’s post.

Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.Support on Ko-Fi

What authors sharing an external link can take from this

Listwright recommends placing a relevant URL in the article or profile and using a comment to explain why a reader might want to visit. That is the author’s practical suggestion, not a guarantee that a link in an article will always be visible: the reported 22/22 result applies only to the sampled article-body links and anonymous page fetches.

Rank #4
Sale
Web Design with HTML, CSS, JavaScript and jQuery Set
  • Brand: Wiley
  • Set of 2 Volumes
  • A handy two-book set that uniquely combines related technologies Highly visual format and accessible language makes these books highly effective learning tools Perfect for beginning web designers and front-end developers

Product prices and availability are accurate as of the date/time indicated and are subject to change. Any price and availability information displayed on Amazon at the time of purchase will apply.

Special offer. See more information about Outbyte and uninstall instructions. Please review EULA and Privacy policy.