| Depr. | Version |
|---|---|
| No | HTML 3.2 |
| IE8 | FF2 | SA4 | OP10 | CH2 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| None | None | None | None | None |
Syntax
Description
The rel
attribute is used to provide information about the relationship between
the document that’s being linked to (as defined in the href attribute) and the referencing document. An example of
the kind of relationship between links is detailed in the Microformats
XFN pattern.
One of the most common uses of
the rel attribute, in the context of the
a element, is to specify a value of
"nofollow". This is to indicate to search engines that
the linked document should not be indexed by the search engine, and that
any reputation/value associated with the linking site is not passed on
such that it benefits the linked page in search results. Nine times out of
ten (if not all ten times!), this is related to Google’s Page Rank
algorithm, and by adding a rel=”nofollow” in to the
anchor it’s said to stop ‘Google Juice’ being passed on (Google explains how it handles nofollow links
here). Other search engines may still follow links marked in this
way, so you cannot assume that this is a fool-proof way of blocking pages
from being searched and indexed.
Example
The following snippet shows a link
to a friend’s web site, and uses the rel attribute
to classify the linked page’s relationship to the page on which the link
occurs. This example shows an attribute defined in the Microformats XFN pattern:
<p>I went over to <a href="http://www.djformat.com/"
rel="friend">Matt</a>'s house. He was spinning some weird Cuban
music for a mix he was putting together.</p>
Value
This attribute takes any value, or a
series of space-separated values. Some conventions are beginning to form
around the use of the rel attribute, as detailed in
Microformats. One commonly-used value is
"nofollow" (see description)
Compatibility
| Internet Explorer | Firefox | Safari | Opera | Chrome | ||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 5.5 | 6.0 | 7.0 | 8.0 | 1.0 | 1.5 | 2.0 | 1.3 | 2.0 | 3.1 | 4.0 | 9.2 | 9.5 | 10.0 | 2.0 |
| None | None | None | None | None | None | None | None | None | None | None | None | None | None | None |
The support charts
for this element show that no support is provided, as no browser renders
the links that use this attribute any differently from normal links, nor
does the application of rel change the browsers’
behavior in any way. The real value of the rel
attribute is gained either by utilizing it to add functionality via
JavaScript and the DOM, or through a centralized web service of some kind
that may be able to make use of the attribute’s content (perhaps for
analytical purposes, or for refining search
results).
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