Learning HTML 3.2 by Examples, section 5 Descriptions of HTML 3.2 tags:

LINK - relationships with other documents

Purpose

To specify relationships with other documents, i.e. links between documents. . Currently this element is not very useful, since few browsers or other programs make use of it. LINK elements could (and perhaps some day will) be used for very important things such as

Typical rendering

The LINK elements do not directly affect the rendering of the document itself. They might have some effect on the presentation of information about the document, e.g. on the browser window elsewhere than in the display of the document itself. Moreover, if a LINK element is used to specify a style sheet, the effect on rendering can be very important.

Basic syntax

<LINK REL=relation HREF=URL>

or

<LINK REV=relation HREF=URL>

Possible attributes

attribute name possible values meaning
HREF URL URL for linked resource
REL string type of "forward" link
REV string type of "reverse" link
TITLE string advisory title string for the linked resource

A link from document A to document B with REV=relation expresses the same relationship as a link from B to A with REL=relation.

Allowed context

The head element, in which any number of LINK elements may appear.

Contents

None.

Examples

A link element which specifies a style sheet to be used:
<LINK REL=STYLESHEET HREF="basic.css">
A simple LINK element providing authorship information:
<LINK REV=MADE HREF="mailto:jkorpela@cs.tut.fi">
Some LINK elements which might appear in a large document divided into separate but interlinked HTML files:
<LINK REL=CONTENTS HREF="toc.html">
<LINK REL=PREV HREF="doc31.html">
<LINK REL=NEXT HREF="doc33.html">

Notes

See the general description of links, especially notes on REL and REV values.

A LINK element with REV=MADE is sometimes used to identify the document author, either the author's email address with a mailto URL (as in the example above), or a link to the author's home page. Although only a few programs (most notably Lynx) make any use of such information, it can be useful to include it, since it also works as a comment-like note to a person reading the HTML source. Notice that the information is not shown to the reader of the document (unless he specifically requests to see the HTML code, of course), so you should additionally provide such information using the ADDRESS element, for example.



Date of last update: 2010-12-16.
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