XHTML 2, link death? Any Element Can Be A Hyperlink

**Learning Newbie** · 12-18-2007, 06:03 PM

Any Element Can Be A Hyperlink

An href attribute can be added to any element to transform it into a hyperlink. For example:

1. <q href="http://xhtml.com/en/future/x-html-5-versus-xhtml-2/">That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind</q>

This is very cool!

So how does that change link analysis? Are the engines going to start just scanning pages for the string href? Will CSS files start to rank?

**tripy** · 12-18-2007, 06:49 PM

Quote:

Will CSS files start to rank?

:-)
I see a new paradise for Snake oil SEO!

Quote:

Get your CSS in first place for "position: absolute"!

**whym** · 12-18-2007, 07:14 PM

I've heard of this before but you've brought it back up again. It's a bit of a shame to say goodbye to our beloved <a> tag but things have to change sometime.

You say any element can be a hyperlink - what about <div>s or are these being phased out. Maybe their equivalents. It would be strange for a huge area of the page to be a link! What about the <body> tag?! Lol

**Learning Newbie** · 12-18-2007, 08:07 PM

What about blockquote and the new BLOCKCODE?

Actually if you think about it, maybe the 35 lines of code in your article should be one big giant link to whatever open source framework you borrowed them from. Or maybe they shouldn't.

Don't all the tags have an onclick now? You could use that to do a java redirect, right? So wouldn't the real reason you might say <img src="x" href="y"> be SEO?

To a person who never heard of SEO before, how would you explain the difference between

A thing on a page you can click on and go somewhere else
A backlink

**coolkbk585** · 12-18-2007, 08:19 PM

lol...this will just spur a new wave of spam and hiding code in web pages...

Why can't we just keep it the way it is? I see the logic for some of these, but on a <DIV>? Why? I know that we can already put a Javascript redirect on any object, but still. Some people use browsers to specially block that kind of thing.

My conclusion: leave that kind of thing for Javascript and keep HTML for content markup.

**vangogh** · 07:20 PM

Seems like a decent idea. You've always been able to wrap <a> tags around most anything so this just makes it easier.

John I think the search engines will have to look for href and then back up to see what tag the attribute was applied to so they can find the closing tag. A little more work than they have to do now, but not all that different.

**Learning Newbie** · 12-19-2007, 02:59 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by vangogh

John I think the search engines will have to look for href and then back up to see what tag the attribute was applied to so they can find the closing tag. A little more work than they have to do now, but now all that different.

I don't mind if they have to do extra work. They're not gonna charge me extra to run a search and click some links. I'm just seeing this as a major paradigm shift.

**vangogh** · 12-19-2007, 07:21 PM

I don't mind either and I don't think it would be a huge task for them. I'm not sure if this would be a major paradigm shift. More a change in the current paradigm.

**Learning Newbie** · 12-19-2007, 07:36 PM

Maybe some of the uncertainty is a good thing. I don't know. Before I really got much involved in the web other than using it to send email, I would say that access to information is a fundamental human right. We could go on all day about the great firewall of China. But I'm learning there's so much nastyness on the web.

So is there a difference between <h1 href="http://www.yellowhousehosting.com/resources/2007/12/18/what-should-we-write-about/">What should we write about?</h1> and blah blah blah <span href="http://www.yellowhousehosting.com/resources/2007/12/18/what-should-we-write-about/">a blog post</span> blah blah blah?

Well, yeah, probably. If I linked to your site with <a><span style="whatever">text</span></a> you're automatically gonna out rank me for the anchor text. If I linked to your site inside an H1 tag, or hell, even the title if any element can really be a link, I at least have a chance of competing with you in the SERPs. Does it change how the link is valued from your perspective? Probably not at all. But I predict millions of dumbfounded webmasters saying things like a link from a header tag is better than a link from a span or em. Then we'll have more people saying it's bad to link from an h1 because Google might expect that for spam, so you should use an h2 instead. (I've already seen that thread over on page SEO.)

That confusion - is it good, bad, or a little of both? People like you and Adam might start throwing href attributes in different tags and not using an extra a link tag, when it makes sense to. Basically just do what comes natural and let the whole thing evolve itself 'till we know the best practices and all that. Might not affect you guys. Some spammers might be so confused trying to sort out what's the weight of links in different tags they stop leaving comments on my blog that say "interesting" with a smiley face.

But my instincts all point me to thinking such a large change is something people should expect the right to understand if they want to. Gotta admit I'm a little torn, but if we're all gearing up for "the semantic web" (like "web 1.6" went away) we're all going to have to understand the plumbing a lot better to make tools, and to make pages the tools won't puke over.

**vangogh** · 12-19-2007, 08:19 PM

I think I understand what you mean now. I guess I wasn't thinking of it as much in the perspective of seo, though I should have given where you started the thread.

This is how I would see the change, though it's just my opinion of course.

If you want to have the text inside an h1 also be a link you would do this

<h1><a href="URL">Your text</a></h1>

You might also try this

<a href="URL"><h1>Your text</h1></a>

I think that presents confusion to some as far as which tag should be nested inside the other.

After the change you would have

<h1 href="URL">Your text</h1>

which I think becomes easier for webmasters.

The question you're asking is how would a search engine see the new vs the old. Only they could tells us and quite honestly it's their problem. I think the easiest thing would be to see it as the first line of code above. A search engine could still look at the new code as if it was an <a> tag inside any other element.

If they do that then there's really no change from the current situation. Sure you can add links directly to your h1 tag and a search engine will just see it as though there's a link inside an h1. So nothing really has to change.

Would people start experimenting to see if they could manipulate the search engines? Of course they would. They do now and they'll continue to try. And we'll have all sorts of new blog and forum posts telling you which is the best tag to add the href to. Is that really much different than what we have now.

Quote:

So is there a difference between <h1 href="http://www.yellowhousehosting.com/resources/2007/12/18/what-should-we-write-about/">What should we write about?</h1> and blah blah blah <span href="http://www.yellowhousehosting.com/resources/2007/12/18/what-should-we-write-about/">a blog post</span> blah blah blah?

I think the difference would (or should) be the same as if you assumed there was an <a> tag inside the other element. Is that how a search engine will see it? Your guess is as good as mine. But if they do then nothing really has to change and I think they're smart enough to see that.

**Learning Newbie** · 12-19-2007, 08:43 PM

Interesting, you make some good points making this change sound much smaller than I'm reading it. It's true, you can put a link around just about anything now, even a whole paragraph.

What do you think will happen to the humble link tag?
<LINK href="special.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css">

**vangogh** · 12-20-2007, 11:37 PM

is that any different than what it already is? I would assume it would still be the same.

John I agree with you that there will be changes in all of this and I can already see the pointless debates about whether adding href to a div is better than adding it to a span, but I think this will ultimately be more something the search engines will have to deal with.