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 tohttps://flaviocopes.com/test
test
once clicked brings me tohttps://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>
Download my free HTML Handbook
More html tutorials:
- An introduction to HTML
- The HTML `iframe` tag
- HTML forms
- The HTML `video` tag
- The HTML `audio` tag
- HTML tags for text
- HTML tables
- The HTML `img` tag
- The HTML `a` tag
- The HTML `picture` tag
- The HTML `figure` tag
- HTML container tags
- Accessibility on the Web
- How to create a comment in HTML
- How to change an HTML image URL in dark mode
- Responsive images using `srcset`
- Changing the favicon in dark mode