What is a link, and how is it used?

Very often in the modern network you can find the slang phrase "link". It can be used in any context, for example, "give a link" or "link broken". About what a link is and will be discussed in the article.

Origin of the word and its definition

The word came from the English link - "connect", "connect". In the simplest case, it means an ordinary link that contains the address of a website or section of a web page. A more precise definition for a link on the Internet is a hyperlink.

It can be added to almost any element of the site. Buttons, switches, pictures, words in the text - all this can contain a hyperlink. The fact that an element refers to another object can be judged by how the mouse cursor behaves over it. If it turned into a hand with an index finger, then there is a link.

Of course, this appearance is used by default. However, some sites may modify it at their own discretion. This approach is rarely used and was relevant at the dawn of development, when many just mastered the html capabilities, adding more and more decorations to your site.

What does the link consist of?

Typically, a link is not just a piece of code, but a browser-friendly, ordered and structured set of commands, keywords, and addresses. A typical link looks like this: http://www.site.ru/catalog/index.html.

In this example, the first part is the access protocol. Here, http is used, which means the method for transferring hypertext. This protocol is the main one for data exchange between the browser and the server. Its extension - https - means that the connection over it is encrypted.

To transfer data to the server, the ftp protocol type can also be used . It was for this purpose that it was created. It is used mainly to upload files to a remote server. The link might look something like this: ftp://www.site.ru/catalog/index.html.

After ftp: // the name of the site goes. For example, mail.ru, google.ru. Then follows the section of the site, which, in fact, can represent a real directory on the server. The last item can be a specific page address. In this case, index.html. It is on it and placed all the necessary code for display, which is understandable to the browser. On many sites, links can be generated automatically by content management systems. Therefore, the last part may not be displayed.

What is a link on one site?

Links or links can be internal. For example, they are used to navigate through sections. As a rule, such link is relative and may not have a part with a protocol and a name. For example: /catalog/index.html. This means that the browser needs to look for the index.html file in the catalog catalog, the root folder of the site.

Any menu on the site in which the sections are located has internal links to go to them.

What are mail links?

The mail link is created in such a way that when you click on it, a special program for working with messages is automatically opened. After its launch, the address specified in the link will be substituted into the "coma" field. It looks, in most cases like this: mymail@mail.ru. That is, in fact just an email address. Converting the link, the services are automatically generated by adding the word "mailto:" to the code.

Or you can do it manually in the html page: . Here you can add any phrase a >. Thus, it turns out that under the expression will be placed a mail link. This is done more for aesthetics. For example, you can write on your website "Send me a letter" and insert your e-mail address under this text.