What is a link element?

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HTML link elements are used to refer to documents and other supplementary information associated with a Web page. A Web page may contain many link elements, but these records are not normally displayed in the main window of your Web browser (some show links in a special menu bar above the main window).

One important use for link elements is to declare the metadata scheme used in the meta elements of a Web page. For instance, if you are using the Dublin Core metadata scheme, your metadata items will be prefixed DC and you should add a link like the one below to signify what it means.

<link rel="schema.DC"
  href="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/"
  title="Dublin Core Element Set"/>

The rel attribute "schema.DC" states that any meta elements with the prefix "DC" refer to the Dublin Core element set, like the examples below. The href attribute is a unique identifier in the form of a URL. The title attribute is optional.

<meta name="DC.Publisher"
  content="Metacentric Internet Limited" />
<meta name="DC.Type"
  scheme="DCMIType"
  content="Text" />
<meta name="DC.Format"
  scheme="IMT"
  content="text/html" />
<meta name="DC.Language"
  scheme="RFC1766"
  content="en-GB" />

By quoting the metadata scheme in the link element, the individual meta elements are understood to have the specific meaning defined by the Dublin Core scheme.

Reference categories

What is a link element?

See also: