Why aren’t the links on my site working?


If a link within a web page is not working, there can be many reasons why it is not working.

Start by checking the website or page you are linking to.  If you can access it by typing in the URL manually, then there is a problem with your link, not the page itself.

Check that the link is correctly spelled, and that the correct case is used.  Index.html, INDEX.HTML, and index.html are all different, and the correct case is important to keep track of.

Then check the file path.  With some desktop-based web editors, it can be possible to leave the file path relative to the computer rather than to the site, such as:

<a href=”C:/My Documents/My Site/my-page.html”>My Page</a>

This points to a file on your computer, rather than a file on your website.  File paths should be absolute, such as:

<a href=”http://www.your-domain.com/my-page.html”>My Page</a>

Or, if the page you are linking to is in the same directory as the page you are editing, relative, such as:

<a href=”my-page.html”>My Page</a>

Finally, check that there are no conflicts with scripts running on the site.  Many major content management systems, such as WordPress and Joomla! use URL rewriters to provide friendlier URLs, and the links that they are producing might not be the ones you have seen.



Article ID: 473
Created On: Tue, Mar 17, 2015 at 3:33 PM
Last Updated On: Thu, Apr 23, 2015 at 12:38 PM

Online URL: https://www.heartinternet.uk/support/article/why-aren-t-the-links-on-my-site-working.html