Links on our website
We use both internal and external links on our website. We do this to help you navigate our website and content and help you find helpful information on other websites as well.
When we link around our website, these are Internal Links as the link doesn't take you away from our website and domain. We also may link to third-party websites and content; these are External links as they take you away from our website and domain.
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This page explains the types of links we use on our website and the Unicode characters we use to let you know which type of link it is before you click on it.
How we link around our website
We link around our website to help you navigate and find what you need quickly. The link will be underlined so it's clear and may look like a URL (full or part) or as text.
Some content on our sites such as media or documents may load in a new tab on your web browser and be part of our website hosting domain (instead of ours) - this content is safe to access, view and download. So you know a new tab may be opened after clicking on an internal link, we'll use the same symbol as the 'external link' to let you know. See more in the Unicode characters section.
Our approach to utilizing and using External Links on our website
Linking to external content is extremely helpful to use and helps us deliver more accurate and detailed information to our users. External content includes webpages, media and other content that isn't hosted on our website, and we use the term External Link - a link that takes you away from our website is an External Link.
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Listed are the reasons we may use and link to external content via an External Link:
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to help us deliver more accurate and detailed information
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for providing further relevant information
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for background information, which may be relevant to our users
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for third-party services or features that are relevant to our website or the user experience
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because we can't, or aren't allowed, to copy or replicate the information on our website
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We don't endorse any of the third parties or content we link to. We also don't link to external content in return for any cash, services, or any other consideration in kind.
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East Devon Scouts ensure the links we publish to our website are checked beforehand and reviewed for their suitability for the website and its users. The two core aspects that we look at and the questions we may ask ourselves before publishing any links: -
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Suitability - Is it relevant? Does it provide a greater benefit to our users? Would users benefit from the link or not? Are we linking to a third party or source that we trust?
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Appropriate - Is content safe for young people? Is it a third party or source we trust? Could we lead users to a dangerous website?
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We trust these specific third parties and sources to deliver suitable and appropriate content: -
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Scouts - https://www.scouts.org.uk ↗︎
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Devon Scouts - https://www.devonscouts.org.uk ↗︎
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UK Government - https://www.gov.uk ↗︎
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We take reasonable steps to ensure any external links remains suitable and appropriate throughout the time they're published on our website. However, we can't review these links constantly and third party content could suddenly change without notice. East Devon Scouts have no control over these third parties nor when they update their content. East Devon Scouts takes no responsibility for the content of third parties that you might be able to access via an External Link from our website. We cannot accept responsibility for any privacy concerns or cookies usage of any third party website. You can report an issue with any link on our website by contacting us.
Unicode characters
Unicode is a standard that "provides a unique number for every character, no matter what platform, device, application or language" - the Unicode Standard Practice, learn more at unicode.org/standard ↗︎.
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Unfortunately there isn't yet a Unicode character specifically for an 'external link', so we use Unicode character U+2197, North East Arrow ( ↗︎ ), followed with the U+FE0E to preserve the Unicode character as text instead of defaulting to an emoji on some devices.
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You may see legacy Unicode characters on our website. Please help us update it by contacting us to report it.
Any inline link will always be underlined and maybe text or full/part of a URL. The character ( ↗︎ ) will appear after the link and be underlined too. This helps identify the link if multiple links are presented at once.
In practice, the link should look something like this: "search the web at Google ↗︎". Except for when the link is part of a 'button', where only the character (symbol) will show.
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When this character ( ↗︎ ) is shown after an underlined link or in a button, it means:
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This link will take you away from our website (to external content), open and show in another tab on your web browser.
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The link would like to use another application to complete the action of the link. For example; a 'mailto' link may want to use the default email application on your device.
This page was last updated on 20th August 2021.