What am I missing out on by linking instead of adding a project?

As I'm not allowed to add projects that use non-standard HTTP ports in their URLs, I've figured the best work around would be to simply link to them in the personal statement section. Aside from the obvious fact that these links don't appear in the correct section on my profile, and won't be found in any searches of these fields, what I am missing out by not adding these projects? What does the fetch of the project page do? Anything more than verifying that I typed the URL correctly and maybe save me some typing?