Hyperlinks

Hyperlinks are highlighted words, images, or phrases on a web page that—when clicked on—automatically redirect the web browser to another webpage. Hyperlinks can be images or text. When Hyperlinks are made from text they're usually highlighted in a different color and underlined. You can tell when you scroll over a Hyperlink because the cursor changes into a hand.

Hyperlinks make it quick and easy to cross-reference text, access suggested websites, send emails through a email composing program (such as Netscape Messenger or Outlook Express), find information, and navigate the world wide web. With Hyperlinks, you don't have to find the desired URL and then type in the URL into the navigation bar. The use of Hyperlinks also makes possible Hypertext—text with links and cross-references to other text—which is now a defining feature of the Internet.

The Anchor of the Hyperlink is the highlighted text that, when clicked on, redirects you to somewhere else. A Hyperlink's Anchor can be a single word, a phrase, a sentence, a domain name, or a webpage's complete URL. Some people refer to both the Destination Target and the activating Anchor text as Anchors.

The Destination Target (or just "Target") of the Hyperlink is the location the Hyperlink takes you to, when the hyperlink is activated. The Anchor points to the Destination Target. The Target can take you to a different paragraph or section on the same webpage, to a different page within the same website, or to an entirely different website. If the Destination Target takes you to a different website, the Hyperlink is known as an Outbound Link. When a Destination Target from another website takes website traffic to a page of your website, it is known as an Inbound Link for your website.

Hyperlinks have an invisible "hot area" surrounding them. Anytime the mouse clicks anywhere within this hot area, the Hyperlink is activated. The hot area doesn't have to be in the shape of a text box. For example, say you are looking at a medical drawing of the sections of the brain. Each irregularly shaped section can be made into a hot area of a Hyperlink, so that clicking on a certain sections of the brain takes you to information on the functioning of that part of the brain.

The Destination Target most Hyperlinks point to is a URL, which is most commonly a homepage of a website. Destination Targets can also point to a specific section or position on a webpage, by using HTML elements to specify on the HTML document the position on the page that inbound links take you to. Hyperlinks that point to a specific section of text are known as Targeted links.

Hyperlinks may be created as embedded links, Hardware accessed links, Inline links, or Random accessed links. Hyperlinks are classified by HTML authors as being virtual links, relative links, or absolute links.

Depending on your preferences and your web browser's capacity, you can select to have hypertext links simply redirect the current frame to the Destination Target or open up a new window for the hyperlinked webpage.