What is a hyperlink?
A hyperlink is a clickable link in a web page to other websites or webpages. usually, hyperlinks are highlighted in blue color with an underline, even though it may be different in different websites. When you click on the hyperlink using your mouse, the new page will be opened in your browser.
Here is an example:
You can use search engine to search for content in internet.
In the above example, the term "search engine" is a hyperlink which allows you to click on it to open another web page.
Hyperlink rules
Not all websites will allow you to use HTML in your posts. Without the ability to use HTML, you will not be able to create hyperlinks.
We allow you to create hyperlinks in most of the sections in this site, but you are NOT allowed to create links to external websites (unless there is a compelling reason to do so). You can create hyperlinks to other pages in this site.
Components of Hyperlinks
A hyperlink has 2 parts:
1. URL - this is the address of the page (URL) which needs to be opened when you click on the link.
2. Anchor Text - this is the text that you see in blue color as part of the link.
Usually, readers of your post will see only the anchor text and not the url. However, when you click on the anchor text, you will be redirected to the web page indicated by the URL.
Consider our previous example:
You can use search engine to search for content in internet.
In this example, the term "search engine" is the anchor text. When you click on it, it opens the page "google.com". So, the url is "http://www.google.com".
How to create a hyperlink?
You need to use a special HTML tag to construct a hyperlink. The format of the hyperlink is as shown below:
<A HREF='url'>anchor text</A>
In the above example, you have to actually replace the words "url' and "anchor text" with the correct url and anchor text.
So, in order to display our above example, you actually need to type the following in your post:
You can use <a href='http://www.google.com'>search engine</a> to search for content in internet.
If you post the above lines in your post in this site, when it is displayed to the user, it will look like this:
You can use search engine to search for content in internet.
You can use this approach to provide links to any page in this website. When you post resources in this site, it is a good idea to provide links to your own other resources or other relevant pages in this site.
Links to external websites
You are not allowed to give any links to any other external websites, except for very scenarios.
If it is absolutely necessary to create hyperlinks to external websites, you should include 2 additional attributes in the hyperlink, as shown below:
<A HREF='url' target='_blank' rel='nofollow'>anchor text</A>
The target='_blank' attribute forces the link to open in a new window. The rel='nofollow' attribute is a hint to search engines that says the link we are providing is not meant for any promotional purpose.
Also, when you create hyperlinks, it is very important to choose the best anchor text for your hyperlinks since the anchor text play an important role in search engine optimization.