When you are linking your Web site together, use relative URLs. A relative URL gives the path to the file to which you wish to link, relative to the page in which the link appears.

You can use absolute URLs to link the pages in your site together, but that is bad practice. Check out my football page If you move the Web site to a different server, the links will no longer work.

The notation../ means to move up one level in the file system hierarchy. Said another way, it says "look outside the current directory."

The next slide shows bad site design: The linking is done in a seemingly random fashion. Pages A and B form a "loop", with no escape (except using the back button on the browser). Page C is isolated on the site. You would have to know the location of that page in the site and type in the full URL to locate it.

One possible linking strategy is to create a linear site (or portion of a site). Move among the pages in a linear fashion using next and back links. An added feature is to put links in the home page pointing to each of the pages, and to put home links in each page.

Linear sites (or portions of sites) are good for pages which need to be read in sequence, like a tutorial for example. Another very common linking strategy for Web sites is to link pages together according to the hierarchical structure of the site. There is a main page. There are several sub categories under that page. There are sub-sub categories under those pages and so forth.

A hierarchical site structure and linking strategy.

mailto: Links send me Requires the Web browser to launch an client. The client has to be properly configured (can logon to an account on a mail (SMTP) server so message can be delivered).