HTML <link> Tag

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/>).

<!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>

Result

link tag example

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.

The <link>tag also supports Global Attributes and the Event Attributes.

Browser support

chrome edge firefox safari opera

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