Is an Absolute Hyperlink Assumed to Be Permanent?
Hyperlink is the official term for what most people call a link. A link is a reference to the address of another Web page. An absolute hyperlink follows a specific format that enables it to work from any location. The alternative format for links is called relative addressing.
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Hyperlinks
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A hyperlink is a piece of text in a Web page that is associated with an address. Generally, hyperlinks are colored blue and underlined, although the Web designer can choose any color. Once a hyperlink has been clicked, the browser remembers that the user has been to that page and changes the color of that hyperlink to red. The condition that defines a hyperlink as absolute is the addressing method used for the address attached to that hyperlink.
Absolute Addresses
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A Web address is also called a URL. A URL is a Uniform Resource Locator. That is the proper name for a Web address. A URL contains a few mandatory elements: the protocol scheme and the domain name. The protocol scheme is the http:// or ftp:// part at the beginning of the address. The domain name is the website name. An absolute address has to have these two sections because an absolute address has to be able to reach a Web page from a theoretical neutral point.
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URLs
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The scheme and the domain name together look something like http://www.asite.com. A URL is really the address of a file, and the address of a website does not contain a file name. Where no file name is present, the Web server defaults to index.html or ïndex.htm. So, the address http://www.asite.com points to http://www.asite.com/index.htm. A file name immediately following the domain name indicates that the file is contained in the root directory of the site. If the file is in a deeper directory, the path to that file is included in the URL, like http://www.asite.com/dir1/subdir/hello.htm. To reach the file hello.htm, an absolute address starts the address structure from a location outside the website file structure. Relative addresses map the location of the target file from the location of the current file within the same website.
Permanence
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Website designers assume all links are permanent. There is no way for a link to be altered automatically. Once a link has been written, it remains the same, and so any link, whether absolute or relative, is permanent. In the real world, the files pointed to by links are moved or have their names changed. In these instances, all links pointing to them will break. The links remain pointing to the old file name at the old locations until someone rewrites them.
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References
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