4.8.1 Introduction

Links are a conceptual construct, created by a, area, and link elements, that represent a connection between two resources, one of which is the current Document. There are two kinds of links in HTML:

Links to external resources

These are links to resources that are to be used to augment the current document, generally automatically processed by the user agent.

Hyperlinks

These are links to other resources that are generally exposed to the user by the user agent so that the user can cause the user agent to navigate to those resources, e.g. to visit them in a browser or download them.

For link elements with an href attribute and a rel attribute, links must be created for the keywords of the rel attribute, as defined for those keywords in the link types section.

Similarly, for a and area elements with an href attribute and a rel attribute, links must be created for the keywords of the rel attribute as defined for those keywords in the link types section. Unlike link elements, however, a and area element with an href attribute that either do not have a rel attribute, or whose rel attribute has no keywords that are defined as specifying hyperlinks, must also create a hyperlink. This implied hyperlink has no special meaning (it has no link type) beyond linking the element's document to the resource given by the element's href attribute.

A hyperlink can have one or more hyperlink annotations that modify the processing semantics of that hyperlink.

The href attribute on a and area elements must have a value that is a valid URL potentially surrounded by spaces.

The href attribute on a and area elements is not required; when those elements do not have href attributes they do not create hyperlinks.

The target attribute, if present, must be a valid browsing context name or keyword. It gives the name of the browsing context that will be used.

When an a or area element's activation behavior is invoked, the user agent may allow the user to indicate a preference regarding whether the hyperlink is to be used for navigation or whether the resource it specifies is to be downloaded.

In the absence of a user preference, the default should be navigation if the element has no download attribute, and should be to download the specified resource if it does.

Whether determined by the user's preferences or via the presence or absence of the attribute, if the decision is to use the hyperlink for navigation then the user agent must follow the hyperlink, and if the decision is to use the hyperlink to download a resource, the user agent must download the hyperlink. These terms are defined in subsequent sections below.

The download attribute, if present, indicates that the author intends the hyperlink to be used for downloading a resource. The attribute may have a value; the value, if any, specifies the default file name that the author recommends for use in labeling the resource in a local file system. There are no restrictions on allowed values, but authors are cautioned that most file systems have limitations with regard to what punctuation is supported in file names, and user agents are likely to adjust file names accordingly.

The ping attribute, if present, gives the URLs of the resources that are interested in being notified if the user follows the hyperlink. The value must be a set of space-separated tokens, each of which must be a valid non-empty URL.

The rel attribute on a and area elements controls what kinds of links the elements create. The attribute's value must be a set of space-separated tokens. The allowed keywords and their meanings are defined below.

The rel attribute has no default value. If the attribute is omitted or if none of the values in the attribute are recognised by the user agent, then the document has no particular relationship with the destination resource other than there being a hyperlink between the two.

The hreflang attribute on a and area elements that create hyperlinks, if present, gives the language of the linked resource. It is purely advisory. The value must be a valid BCP 47 language tag. [BCP47]

The type attribute, if present, gives the MIME type of the linked resource. It is purely advisory. The value must be a valid MIME type.

4.8.3 Downloading resources

In some cases, resources are intended for later use rather than immediate viewing. To indicate that a resource is intended to be downloaded for use later, rather than immediately used, the download attribute can be specified on the a or area element that creates the hyperlink to that resource.

The attribute can furthermore be given a value, to specify the file name that user agents are to use when storing the resource in a file system. This value can be overridden by the Content-Disposition HTTP header's filename parameters. [RFC6266]

In cross-origin situations, the download attribute has to be combined with the Content-Disposition HTTP header, specifically with the attachment disposition type, to avoid the user being warned of possibly nefarious activity. (This is to protect users from being made to download sensitive personal or confidential information without their full understanding.)

The ping attribute is redundant with pre-existing technologies like HTTP redirects and JavaScript in allowing Web pages to track which off-site links are most popular or allowing advertisers to track click-through rates.

However, the ping attribute provides these advantages to the user over those alternatives:

  • It allows the user to see the final target URL unobscured.
  • It allows the UA to inform the user about the out-of-band notifications.
  • It allows the user to disable the notifications without losing the underlying link functionality.
  • It allows the UA to optimise the use of available network bandwidth so that the target page loads faster.

Thus, while it is possible to track users without this feature, authors are encouraged to use the ping attribute so that the user agent can make the user experience more transparent.

4.8.4 Link types

The following table summarizes the link types that are defined by this specification. This table is non-normative; the actual definitions for the link types are given in the next few sections.

In this section, the term referenced document refers to the resource identified by the element representing the link, and the term current document refers to the resource within which the element representing the link finds itself.

Except where otherwise specified, a keyword must not be specified more than once per rel attribute.

Link types are always ASCII case-insensitive.

Thus, rel="next" is the same as rel="NEXT".

Link type Effect on... Brief description
link a and area
alternate Hyperlink Hyperlink Gives alternate representations of the current document.
author Hyperlink Hyperlink Gives a link to the author of the current document or article.
bookmark not allowed Hyperlink Gives the permalink for the nearest ancestor section.
external not allowed Annotation Indicates that the referenced document is not part of the same site as the current document.
help Hyperlink Hyperlink Provides a link to context-sensitive help.
icon External Resource not allowed Imports an icon to represent the current document.
license Hyperlink Hyperlink Indicates that the main content of the current document is covered by the copyright license described by the referenced document.
next Hyperlink Hyperlink Indicates that the current document is a part of a series, and that the next document in the series is the referenced document.
nofollow not allowed Annotation Indicates that the current document's original author or publisher does not endorse the referenced document.
noreferrer not allowed Annotation Requires that the user agent not send an HTTP Referer (sic) header if the user follows the hyperlink.
pingback External Resource not allowed Gives the address of the pingback server that handles pingbacks to the current document.
prefetch External Resource External Resource Specifies that the target resource should be preemptively cached.
prev Hyperlink Hyperlink Indicates that the current document is a part of a series, and that the previous document in the series is the referenced document.
search Hyperlink Hyperlink Gives a link to a resource that can be used to search through the current document and its related pages.
sidebar Hyperlink Hyperlink Specifies that the referenced document, if retrieved, is intended to be shown in the browser's sidebar (if it has one).
stylesheet External Resource not allowed Imports a stylesheet.
tag not allowed Hyperlink Gives a tag (identified by the given address) that applies to the current document.
4.8.4.1 Link type "alternate"

The alternate keyword may be used with link, a, and area elements.

The meaning of this keyword depends on the values of the other attributes.

If the element is a link element and the rel attribute also contains the keyword stylesheet

The alternate keyword modifies the meaning of the stylesheet keyword in the way described for that keyword. The alternate keyword does not create a link of its own.

If the alternate keyword is used with the type attribute set to the value application/rss+xml or the value application/atom+xml

The keyword creates a hyperlink referencing a syndication feed (though not necessarily syndicating exactly the same content as the current page).

Otherwise

The keyword creates a hyperlink referencing an alternate representation of the current document.

The nature of the referenced document is given by the hreflang, and type attributes.

If the alternate keyword is used with the hreflang attribute, and that attribute's value differs from the root element's language, it indicates that the referenced document is a translation.

If the alternate keyword is used with the type attribute, it indicates that the referenced document is a reformulation of the current document in the specified format.

The hreflang and type attributes can be combined when specified with the alternate keyword.

For example, the following link is a French translation that uses the PDF format:

<link rel=alternate type=application/pdf hreflang=fr href=manual-fr>

This relationship is transitive — that is, if a document links to two other documents with the link type "alternate", then, in addition to implying that those documents are alternative representations of the first document, it is also implying that those two documents are alternative representations of each other.

The author keyword may be used with link, a, and area elements. This keyword creates a hyperlink.

For a and area elements, the author keyword indicates that the referenced document provides further information about the author of the nearest article element ancestor of the element defining the hyperlink, if there is one, or of the page as a whole, otherwise.

For link elements, the author keyword indicates that the referenced document provides further information about the author for the page as a whole.

The "referenced document" can be, and often is, a mailto: URL giving the e-mail address of the author. [MAILTO]

The bookmark keyword may be used with a and area elements. This keyword creates a hyperlink.

The bookmark keyword gives a permalink for the nearest ancestor article element of the linking element in question, or of the section the linking element is most closely associated with, if there are no ancestor article elements.

The following snippet has three permalinks. A user agent could determine which permalink applies to which part of the spec by looking at where the permalinks are given.

 ...
 <body>
  <h1>Example of permalinks</h1>
  <div id="a">
   <h2>First example</h2>
   <p><a href="a.html" rel="bookmark">This permalink applies to
   only the content from the first H2 to the second H2</a>. The DIV isn't
   exactly that section, but it roughly corresponds to it.</p>
  </div>
  <h2>Second example</h2>
  <article id="b">
   <p><a href="b.html" rel="bookmark">This permalink applies to
   the outer ARTICLE element</a> (which could be, e.g., a blog post).</p>
   <article id="c">
    <p><a href="c.html" rel="bookmark">This permalink applies to
    the inner ARTICLE element</a> (which could be, e.g., a blog comment).</p>
   </article>
  </article>
 </body>
 ...

The external keyword may be used with a and area elements. This keyword does not create a hyperlink, but annotates any other hyperlinks created by the element (the implied hyperlink, if no other keywords create one).

The external keyword indicates that the link is leading to a document that is not part of the site that the current document forms a part of.

The help keyword may be used with link, a, and area elements. This keyword creates a hyperlink.

For a and area elements, the help keyword indicates that the referenced document provides further help information for the parent of the element defining the hyperlink, and its children.

In the following example, the form control has associated context-sensitive help. The user agent could use this information, for example, displaying the referenced document if the user presses the "Help" or "F1" key.

 <p><label> Topic: <input name=topic> <a href="help/topic.html" rel="help">(Help)</a></label></p>

For link elements, the help keyword indicates that the referenced document provides help for the page as a whole.

For a and area elements, on some browsers, the help keyword causes the link to use a different cursor.

4.8.4.6 Link type "icon"

The icon keyword may be used with link elements. This keyword creates an external resource link.

Icons could be auditory icons, visual icons, or other kinds of icons.

The sizes attribute gives the sizes of icons for visual media. Its value, if present, is merely advisory. User agents may use the value to decide which icon(s) to use if multiple icons are available.

If specified, the attribute must have a value that is an unordered set of unique space-separated tokens which are ASCII case-insensitive. Each value must be either an ASCII case-insensitive match for the string "any", or a value that consists of two valid non-negative integers that do not have a leading U+0030 DIGIT ZERO (0) character and that are separated by a single U+0078 LATIN SMALL LETTER X or U+0058 LATIN CAPITAL LETTER X character.

The keywords represent icon sizes in raw pixels (as opposed to CSS pixels).

An icon that is 50 CSS pixels wide intended for displays with a device pixel density of two device pixels per CSS pixel (2x, 192dpi) would have a width of 100 raw pixels. This feature does not support indicating that a different resource is to be used for small high-resolution icons vs large low-resolution icons (e.g. 50×50 2x vs 100×100 1x).

The any keyword represents that the resource contains a scalable icon, e.g. as provided by an SVG image.

The keywords specified on the sizes attribute must not represent icon sizes that are not actually available in the linked resource.

The following snippet shows the top part of an application with several icons.

<!DOCTYPE HTML>
<html>
 <head>
  <title>lsForums — Inbox</title>
  <link rel=icon href=favicon.png sizes="16x16" type="image/png">
  <link rel=icon href=windows.ico sizes="32x32 48x48" type="image/vnd.microsoft.icon">
  <link rel=icon href=mac.icns sizes="128x128 512x512 8192x8192 32768x32768">
  <link rel=icon href=iphone.png sizes="57x57" type="image/png">
  <link rel=icon href=gnome.svg sizes="any" type="image/svg+xml">
  <link rel=stylesheet href=lsforums.css>
  <script src=lsforums.js></script>
  <meta name=application-name content="lsForums">
 </head>
 <body>
  ...

For historical reasons, the icon keyword may be preceded by the keyword "shortcut". If the "shortcut" keyword is present, the rel attribute's entire value must be an ASCII case-insensitive match for the string "shortcut icon" (with a single U+0020 SPACE character between the tokens and no other space characters).

The license keyword may be used with link, a, and area elements. This keyword creates a hyperlink.

The license keyword indicates that the referenced document provides the copyright license terms under which the main content of the current document is provided.

This specification does not specify how to distinguish between the main content of a document and content that is not deemed to be part of that main content. The distinction should be made clear to the user.

Consider a photo sharing site. A page on that site might describe and show a photograph, and the page might be marked up as follows:

<!DOCTYPE HTML>
<html>
 <head>
  <title>Exampl Pictures: Kissat</title>
  <link rel="stylesheet" href="/style/default">
 </head>
 <body>
  <h1>Kissat</h1>
  <nav>
   <a href="../">Return to photo index</a>
  </nav>
  <figure>
   <img src="/pix/39627052_fd8dcd98b5.jpg">
   <figcaption>Kissat</figcaption>
  </figure>
  <p>One of them has six toes!</p>
  <p><small><a rel="license" href="http://www.opensource.org/licenses/mit-license.php">MIT Licensed</a></small></p>
  <footer>
   <a href="/">Home</a> | <a href="../">Photo index</a>
   <p><small>© copyright 2009 Exampl Pictures. All Rights Reserved.</small></p>
  </footer>
 </body>
</html>

In this case the license applies to just the photo (the main content of the document), not the whole document. In particular not the design of the page itself, which is covered by the copyright given at the bottom of the document. This could be made clearer in the styling (e.g. making the license link prominently positioned near the photograph, while having the page copyright in light small text at the foot of the page.

The nofollow keyword may be used with a and area elements. This keyword does not create a hyperlink, but annotates any other hyperlinks created by the element (the implied hyperlink, if no other keywords create one).

The nofollow keyword indicates that the link is not endorsed by the original author or publisher of the page, or that the link to the referenced document was included primarily because of a commercial relationship between people affiliated with the two pages.

The noreferrer keyword may be used with a and area elements. This keyword does not create a hyperlink, but annotates any other hyperlinks created by the element (the implied hyperlink, if no other keywords create one).

It indicates that no referrer information is to be leaked when following the link.

The pingback keyword may be used with link elements. This keyword creates an external resource link.

For the semantics of the pingback keyword, see the Pingback 1.0 specification. [PINGBACK]

The prefetch keyword may be used with link, a, and area elements. This keyword creates an external resource link.

The prefetch keyword indicates that preemptively fetching and caching the specified resource is likely to be beneficial, as it is highly likely that the user will require this resource.

There is no default type for resources given by the prefetch keyword.

The search keyword may be used with link, a, and area elements. This keyword creates a hyperlink.

The search keyword indicates that the referenced document provides an interface specifically for searching the document and its related resources.

OpenSearch description documents can be used with link elements and the search link type to enable user agents to autodiscover search interfaces. [OPENSEARCH]

The sidebar keyword may be used with link, a, and area elements. This keyword creates a hyperlink.

The sidebar keyword indicates that the referenced document, if retrieved, is intended to be shown in a secondary browsing context (if possible), instead of in the current browsing context.

A hyperlink with the sidebar keyword specified is a sidebar hyperlink.

The stylesheet keyword may be used with link elements. This keyword creates an external resource link that contributes to the styling processing model.

The specified resource is a resource that describes how to present the document. Exactly how the resource is to be processed depends on the actual type of the resource.

If the alternate keyword is also specified on the link element, then the link is an alternative stylesheet; in this case, the title attribute must be specified on the link element, with a non-empty value.

The default type for resources given by the stylesheet keyword is text/css.

The tag keyword may be used with a and area elements. This keyword creates a hyperlink.

The tag keyword indicates that the tag that the referenced document represents applies to the current document.

Since it indicates that the tag applies to the current document, it would be inappropriate to use this keyword in the markup of a tag cloud, which lists the popular tags across a set of pages.

This document is about some gems, and so it is tagged with "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gemstone" to unambiguously categorise it as applying to the "jewel" kind of gems, and not to, say, the towns in the US, the Ruby package format, or the Swiss locomotive class:

<!DOCTYPE HTML>
<html>
 <head>
  <title>My Precious</title>
 </head>
 <body>
  <header><h1>My precious</h1> <p>Summer 2012</p></header>
  <p>Recently I managed to dispose of a red gem that had been
  bothering me. I now have a much nicer blue sapphire.</p>
  <p>The red gem had been found in a bauxite stone while I was digging
  out the office level, but nobody was willing to haul it away. The
  same red gem stayed there for literally years.</p>
  <footer>
   Tags: <a rel=tag href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gemstone">Gemstone</a>
  </footer>
 </body>
</html>

In this document, there are two articles. The "tag" link, however, applies to the whole page (and would do so wherever it was placed, including if it was within the article elements).

<!DOCTYPE HTML>
<html>
 <head>
  <title>Gem 4/4</title>
 </head>
 <body>
  <article>
   <h1>801: Steinbock</h1>
   <p>The number 801 Gem 4/4 electro-diesel has an ibex and was rebuilt in 2002.</p>
  </article>
  <article>
   <h1>802: Murmeltier</h1>
   <figure>
    <img src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b0/Trains_de_la_Bernina_en_hiver_2.jpg"
         alt="The 802 was red with pantographs and tall vents on the side.">
    <figcaption>The 802 in the 1980s, above Lago Bianco.</figcaption>
   </figure>
   <p>The number 802 Gem 4/4 electro-diesel has a marmot and was rebuilt in 2003.</p>
  </article>
  <p class="topic"><a rel=tag href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhaetian_Railway_Gem_4/4">Gem 4/4</a></p>
 </body>
</html>

Some documents form part of a sequence of documents.

A sequence of documents is one where each document can have a previous sibling and a next sibling. A document with no previous sibling is the start of its sequence, a document with no next sibling is the end of its sequence.

A document may be part of multiple sequences.

The next keyword may be used with link, a, and area elements. This keyword creates a hyperlink.

The next keyword indicates that the document is part of a sequence, and that the link is leading to the document that is the next logical document in the sequence.

The prev keyword may be used with link, a, and area elements. This keyword creates a hyperlink.

The prev keyword indicates that the document is part of a sequence, and that the link is leading to the document that is the previous logical document in the sequence.

Extensions to the predefined set of link types may be registered in the microformats wiki existing-rel-values page. [MFREL]

Anyone is free to edit the microformats wiki existing-rel-values page at any time to add a type. Extension types must be specified with the following information:

Keyword

The actual value being defined. The value should not be confusingly similar to any other defined value (e.g. differing only in case).

If the value contains a U+003A COLON character (:), it must also be an absolute URL.

Effect on... link

One of the following:

Not allowed
The keyword must not be specified on link elements.
Hyperlink
The keyword may be specified on a link element; it creates a hyperlink.
External Resource
The keyword may be specified on a link element; it creates an external resource link.
Effect on... a and area

One of the following:

Not allowed
The keyword must not be specified on a and area elements.
Hyperlink
The keyword may be specified on a and area elements; it creates a hyperlink.
External Resource
The keyword may be specified on a and area elements; it creates an external resource link.
Hyperlink Annotation
The keyword may be specified on a and area elements; it annotates other hyperlinks created by the element.
Brief description

A short non-normative description of what the keyword's meaning is.

Specification

A link to a more detailed description of the keyword's semantics and requirements. It could be another page on the Wiki, or a link to an external page.

Synonyms

A list of other keyword values that have exactly the same processing requirements. Authors should not use the values defined to be synonyms, they are only intended to allow user agents to support legacy content. Anyone may remove synonyms that are not used in practice; only names that need to be processed as synonyms for compatibility with legacy content are to be registered in this way.

Status

One of the following:

Proposed
The keyword has not received wide peer review and approval. Someone has proposed it and is, or soon will be, using it.
Ratified
The keyword has received wide peer review and approval. It has a specification that unambiguously defines how to handle pages that use the keyword, including when they use it in incorrect ways.
Discontinued
The keyword has received wide peer review and it has been found wanting. Existing pages are using this keyword, but new pages should avoid it. The "brief description" and "specification" entries will give details of what authors should use instead, if anything.

If a keyword is found to be redundant with existing values, it should be removed and listed as a synonym for the existing value.

If a keyword is registered in the "proposed" state for a period of a month or more without being used or specified, then it may be removed from the registry.

If a keyword is added with the "proposed" status and found to be redundant with existing values, it should be removed and listed as a synonym for the existing value. If a keyword is added with the "proposed" status and found to be harmful, then it should be changed to "discontinued" status.

Anyone can change the status at any time, but should only do so in accordance with the definitions above.

Types defined as extensions in the microformats wiki existing-rel-values page with the status "proposed" or "ratified" may be used with the rel attribute on link, a, and area elements in accordance to the "Effect on..." field. [MFREL]