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Understanding the various types of links

In this tutorial, we'll revisit the part of HTML responsible for spinning the web into what it is today: links. Links are among the very first things all webmasters learn, but many did not know that there is life after the href and mailto link.

A standard looking link in a document looks something like this:

<a href="page1.htm">Click here</a>

Clicking on the above will take us to "page1.htm". While most authors are content with using a link to simply link to a page or as a mailto link, its important to realize that it has other functions too. The below lists these functions:

Types of links Functions
http: Takes us to another html document
mailto: Opens up the default email program
javascript: Executes a JavaScript code
view-source: Views the source of the specified document
about: Views information about the browser, such as cache, version etc.

Lets explain in detail the later three: