HTML <link> Tag
Topic: HTML5 Tags ReferencePrev|Next
Description
The <link> tag defines a link between the current document and an external resource.
The <link> element may only appear in the head section of a document, although it may appear any number of times. It is mostly used in linking style sheets to the HTML document.
The following table summarizes the usages context and the version history of this tag.
| Parent: | <head> |
|---|---|
| Content: | None. It is an empty element. |
| Start/End Tag: | Start tag: required, End tag: forbidden |
| Version: | HTML 2, 3.2, 4, 4.01, 5 |
Syntax
The basic syntax of the <link> tag is given with:
XHTML:<link rel="link-type" href="URL" />
The example below shows the <link> tag in action.
Example
Try this code »<head>
<title>HTML Document</title>
<link rel="stylesheet" href="default.css">
</head>Tag-Specific Attributes
The following table shows the attributes that are specific to the <link> tag.
| Attribute | Value | Description |
|---|---|---|
charset |
charset | Obsolete Specifies the character encoding of the linked resource. |
crossorigin |
anonymous |
Specifies how the element handles cross-origin requests. |
href |
URL | Specifies the location of a linked document. |
hreflang |
language-code | Specifies the language of the linked document. This attribute may only be used when href is specified. |
media |
media-types | Specifies the media which the linked resource applies to. The default value is screen. |
rel |
alternate |
Specifies the relationship of the linked resource to the current document. This attribute should be used only if the href attribute is present. |
rev |
link-type | Obsolete Describes the relationship of the linked document back to the source document (the opposite of the rel attribute). |
sizes |
HeightxWidthany |
Specifies the size of the icons (for rel="icon"). |
target |
_blankframename |
Obsolete Defines where to open the linked document specified in the href attribute. |
type |
content-type | Specifies the content type of the linked document. The most common value is text/css, which indicates a Cascading Style Sheet format. |
Global Attributes
Like all other HTML tags, the <link> tag supports the global attributes in HTML5.
Event Attributes
The <link> tag also supports the event attributes in HTML5.
Browser Compatibility
The <link> tag is supported in all major modern browsers.
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Basic Support—
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Note: When used for referencing external style sheets, the <link> element is supported in all major browsers, but there's no real support for anything else.
Further Reading
See tutorial on: HTML Style Sheets.
Related tags: <style>.
