Placing Hyperlinks in Web Pages and EMail
A hyperlink is text that you click that will take you to another page, image, or document.
The link consists of text that displays for the user and a hidden link value
that will direct the browser to a location when the text is clicked.
The hyperlink is identified for the user with highlighted or underlined text.
A hyperlink can refer to a page, image, or document within your website or it can refer to a
different website. When the reference is within your website the preferred link is
a "relative" link. The target is relative to the current website and you specify
only the relative location of the page or document within the website.
This type of link will usually start with a slash, "/".
An absolute link is a full web page address, starting with "http://" or "https://".
Use this type of link when your web page, image, or document is on a different website.
Hyperlinks can be created and used anywhere an "editor" is used to format your text.
The editors are easy to identify since they have toolbar at the top of a large box for
entering your text. The editor often allows direct coding of HTML,
the language interpreted by browsers. Hyperlinks are
converted into <a> HTML tags by the editor.
If the target of your link is a web page you can copy the web page address from your address bar.
If the page is in your own website you should remove the prefix that identifies your
website. If the page address is "http://sample.visualpursuits.com/Competitions/CompetitionResults.aspx"
you would only want "/Competitions/CompetitionResults.aspx" as your relative address.
If your cookies setting is not properly set, your address bar may contain an additional
value after the website name that starts with some text that looks like "/(x(1)a(...".
You must not create links that contain such values as those values are for a temporary
sessions and will not work for other users. Visit the Cookies
help page for assistance in setting your cookies option.
If the target of your link is a document on your downloads area, go to the Manage Downloads page
and locate your document. Text for both a relative and absolute link will be listed there.
Most likely you will want to copy the relative link.
To create a hyperlink in an email or web page, go to the editor where the link will be used.
Enter some text that describes the target of your link, such as the document name. Use the
word "here" only as a last resort since it is the least informative and does not index well
in search engines like Google.
Select the text that will represent your hyperlink.
Click the "Insert" tab at the top of the editor to display the link button you need.
Click the button "Link Manager".
In this dialog you want to set the
URL field to either your relative or absolute link value. Only the absolute (full page address)
will start with "http". Relative links do not have this prefix.
If you want the target to display on a new tab in your browser,
select the Target as "New Window" before clicking OK.
To alter or remove a hyperlink, hover the mouse over the hyperlink and use a right-click to
bring up a menu of options. You can also click in the text and click the Link Manager button.
Be sure to test your links after you have saved updates to your web pages.