The value and meaning of hyperlinks

As soon as we open up a browser, we encounter terms such as HTTP, HTML or WWW, which we overlook as a general rule. And even if we perceive them, we often do not realize what they actually mean: That the World Wide Web is a network of hypertext. And it is precisely this power structure that makes the Web so functional and practical.

Hyper?

Hyper texts are texts that are linked to each other and can thus be extended almost infinitely. Many texts jumbled together create the network of information that provides the user with huge amounts of data. Thus when surfing, we find references that lead us to other articles, products or programs. Terms such as Hypertext Transfer Protocol, Hypertext Markup Language, the World Wide Web or Internet refer to the hypertext structure of the Internet.

In the daily use of the World Wide Web, we use hyperlinks to create the Web,  the network structure of the Internet. This tutorial will illuminate how links links are used correctly.

What is a link?

“Links” on the World Wide Web are links between individual sites. Technically, it is a small piece of code that indicates the location of another document (or website)  and tells the browser to call up or open this document. Web operators therefore use links to connect and expand information and give users access to it.

But a link is so much more than that in our times of Google and Co. Search engines understand links as recommendations to where a user can find useful information. The more good recommendations a website gets, the better the link is deemed to be by Google. They must therefore be on point. Although this system is very susceptible to manipulation, SEOs still see them as a main factors affecting rank, and are therefore often copiously used in texts.

So there are hyperlinks and there are hyperlinks. Google evaluates links differently depending on, for example, where on the site they are or how they are labeled. If you want to learn more about the evaluation system of Google, on “Link Juice” and “backlinks”, you can go here.

How is a link structured?

Hyperlinks consist of an HTML tag and the linked element, usually a text or an image. So Like most HTML tags also encloses the anchor tag with an introductory <a> and a final code a link text or image.

A hyperlink contains 3 main components and can look like this:

What part of the sentence should I link?

The item that the user can click should be properly selected. Occasionally even images are linked, usually it is text however, so-called link or anchor texts. These link texts should be chosen such that they make it clear to user and engine alike what awaits them on the linked page.

In principle, any text can be linked, whether a single word or an entire paragraph. From SEO perspective, link texts are the best for rankings if they contain the keyword or keywords of the page. SEO experts still dispute how many words a link text should have, but it is clear that the link text must act as naturally as possible. Thus, instead of only being the individual keyword, anchor texts can also be complete sentences or even whole paragraphs.

To learn more about hyperlinks, read this article from SearchMetrics.