The HTML `a` tag

Discover the basics of working with the HTML `a` tag to create links

Links are defined using the a tag. The link destination is set via its href attribute.

Example:

<a href="https://flaviocopes.com">click here</a>

Between the starting and closing tag we have the link text.

The above example is an absolute URL. Links also work with relative URLs:

<a href="/test">click here</a>

In this case, when clicking the link the user is moved to the /test URL on the current origin.

Be careful with the / character. If omitted, instead of starting from the origin, the browser will just add the test string to the current URL.

Example, I’m on the page https://flaviocopes.com/axios/ and I have these links:

• /test once clicked brings me to https://flaviocopes.com/test
• test once clicked brings me to https://flaviocopes.com/axios/test

Link tags can include other things inside them, not just text. For example, images:

<a href="https://flaviocopes.com">
	<img src="test.jpg">
</a>

or any other elements, except other <a> tags.

If you want to open the link in a new tab, you can use the target attribute:

<a href="https://flaviocopes.com" target="_blank">open in new tab</a>