HTML <link> Tag

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The <link> tag sets the relationship between the current document and the external resource. It is generally used to link to the external CSS stylesheet.

The <link> tag can be used to link different versions of a page. This is useful if there are several translations of content.

An HTML document can have several <link> elements for loading different types of script or page. All these <link> elements should be placed in the <head> section of the document (commonly before the closing </head> tag), and they can be used many times.

Syntax

The <link> tag is empty, which means that the closing tag isn’t required. It contains only attributes. But in XHTML, the (<link>) tag must be closed (<link/>).

Example of the HTML <link> tag:

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
  <head>
    <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="style.css">
  </head>
  <body>
    <h1>The appearance of the header is determined by the CSS styles specified in the external file.</h1>
    <p>The appearance of the paragraph is determined by the CSS styles specified in the external file.</p>
  </body>
</html>

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Result

Attributes

Attribute	Value	Description
charset	char_encoding	Defines the coding of the linked document. Not supported in HTML5.
href	URL	Defines the URL of the external file.
hreflang	language_code	Defines the text language of the linked document.
media	media_query	Defines the device, for which the styles will be applied.
rel	alternate archives author bookmark external first help icon last license next nofollow noreferrer pingback prefetch prev search sidebar stylesheet tag up	Defines the relationship between the current document and the linked file.
rev	reversed relationship	Defines the relationship between the current and linked documents. Not supported in HTML5.
sizes	HeightxWeight	Sets the size of associated icons. Used only with rel = "icon".
target		Defines how the link should be opened:
	_blank	In a new window.
	_self	In the current window.
	_top	To the full width of the window.
	_parent	In the parent frame.
	frame_name	In the frame. Not supported in HTML5.
type	media_type	Defines the MIME-type (specification for network transfer of various types of files) of the linked document.