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Types of HTML Hyperlinks

by Ron Kurtus (updated 21 December 2022)

A web page hyperlink (or simply "link") consists of a word, group of words, or image that you can click on to jump to another document, page, or section. It is the means of website navigation.

An external link allows you to jump to a page on another website, an internal link allows you to jump to another page in the existing site, and an anchored link jumps to another area on the existing page.

External links can only be absolute, internal can be either relative or absolute, and anchored links are only relative.

Questions you may have include:

This lesson will answer those questions.



External links

Clicking on an external link takes you to a page on another website. It is called absolute, since all information concerning the website and page location must be given. An example of the HTML coding for an external link is:

<a href="https://www.this_site.com/web/resources.htm">Web Design Resources</a>

A major problem with external links, is that the recipient page may move or go away, leaving you with a broken link. To resolve that problem, you can add target="_blank" to the link:

<a href="https://www.this_site.com/web/resources.htm" target="_blank">Web Design Resources</a>

Internal links

An internal link takes you to another page in your website. These links are usually relative and are in the form of:

<a href="/web/resources.htm"><b>Web Design Resources</b></a>

Internal links can also be absolute, but that requires the browser to call the server, as opposed to simply jumping to the designated page.

Anchored links

Clicking on an anchored link will take you to another position in the existing web page. It is often used to help navigate a large page.

The anchor is the position where you want to jump to, such as the word Types at the top of this page:

<a name="Types_of_pages" id="Types_of_pages"></a>Types of pages

It could also be written as:

<a name="Types_of_pages" id="Types_of_pages">Types of pages</a>

Note The spaces are not allowed in anchor names. For more than one word, use dashes or underscores.

Then the link elsewhere in the page is written:

<a href="#Types_of_pages">Jump to types</a>

Jump to types

Summary

An external link allows you to jump to a page on another website, an internal link allows you to jump to another page in the existing site, and an anchored link jumps to another area on the existing page.

External links can only be absolute, internal can be either relative or absolute, and anchored links are only relative.


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