Web Design

34

Understanding URLs and File Paths

Y

our Web site is a collection of linked pages. You can have links on your pages that take your user

to other pages in your site, other sites on the Web, other places within the same document, or

e-mail addresses. The details of creating each of these links are covered in the following sections,

but before you can start understanding the HTML syntax for links, you need to understand how to

reference other pages in your document and other sites on the Web.

Relative Paths

Pages within your site can be referenced from

one another via a relative path, where you tell

the browser where the page to which you are

linking is in relation to the current page. Think of

this like giving directions to someone on the

street, where you tell them how to go based on

your current location.

Pages in Folders

When providing a relative path, you may have files to

which you are linking that are in folders other than

the one that contains the file with the link. If the

page to which you are linking is in a folder, and that

folder is in the same folder as the page with the link,

you simply provide the folder name, a slash, and the

filename, as in products/widget.html.

Absolute Paths

Hyperlinks to other sites on the Web need to use

absolute paths for reference. Absolute paths contain the

complete address to the site, including http://. Using

an absolute path is similar to how you address a letter

in the mail: You provide the complete address,

regardless of where the letter originates.

http://www.example.com