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    I think this is the biggest argument in favor of always including a summary with links. But that's not to say a link only answer should be overlooked. Sometimes a summary isn't doable or applicable. And even if it is, sometimes you just don't have the time to do it. Other times it's just not all that relevant to summarize every link - this depends on the whole context.
    – cregox
    Commented Feb 17, 2010 at 23:31
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    Late to this party, but I wanted to add that if you're going to provide just a link because you want to be quicker about your answer, fine, but you should go ahead and edit the answer and provide more follow up. Best of both worlds.
    – Katie Kilian
    Commented Mar 30, 2012 at 16:42
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    This depends on the link itself; sometimes they encode information in the url itself that will remain useful even if the target disappears. As a related issue, fancy formatting to hide the actual URLs can degrade answers, by removing such information - as well as attribution - sometimes present in the URL.
    – Chris Stratton
    Commented Jul 16, 2012 at 18:54
  • A link alone is a bad answer , that deserved to be improved or downvote, but usually do not delete
    – Michael Freidgeim
    Commented Oct 14, 2023 at 19:54