A relative reference does not specify the complete path to a web page. It specifies only the name of the web page.

• An absolute reference or url contains all the information necessary to locate a resource or target

• A relative reference does not specify the complete path to a web page. It specifies only the name of the web page.

• Relative Reference is easy to write. It is shorter than an absolute reference

• If you want to refer to a page on another website, you use an absolute reference.

• If you want to link to another page on your own site, you use a relative reference.

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An absolute reference or url contains all the information necessary to locate a resource or target. 

URL is short for Universal Resource Locator. A url specifies the location of a target stored on a local or networked computer. The target can be a file, directory, HTML page, image, program, etc.

The absolute reference (or path) of the page you’re reading now is : 

The absolute reference comprises the following:

• The http protocol- http:// (or https if a secure page)

• The website name- www.villagecoder.com

• The folder that the page is located in- Articles

• The page name- difference -between-absolute-and-relative-references-in-HTML.php

If we are writing an article on a different Website and we would want to link to this page, we would use the html :

The HTML code above will provide the following link :

difference -between-absolute and Relative References in

Note that if you click on the above link, you’ll be redirected to this same page.

Relative Reference

A relative reference does not specify the complete path to a web page. It specifies only the name of the web page. 

For example, if we consider the absolute reference example above, we can write its corresponding relative reference as:

difference-between-absolute-and-relative-references-in-HTML.php

We can see that there are no http protocol, website name and folder page is stored in. 

This is because when you use a relative reference, it assumes that the website name and folder that contain the web page are the very website and folder that you’re currently accessing. 

If the page is in a different directory that is a child of a directory the user is currently in, then the folder name (child folder) would be specified.

Advantages of Relative References

1. Relative Reference is easy to write. It is shorter than an absolute reference.
2. If a website’s name or folder web page is uploaded is changed, relative reference will still work. An absolute reference will however not work if a website or folder is changed.

Output

When you click on any of the links, say Python, you are directed to the Python page. 

On the Python page, there’s a link back to the previous page. A website normally contains several pages inked together. Relative Reference helps to link one page to another page within the same website.

When a user of the above website clicks python.html, the browser does not see any protocol (http). Thus, the browser assumes that python.html page is in the same directory on the same server as programming.html. 

If you want to refer to a page on another website, you use an absolute reference. 

If you want to link to another page on your own site, you use a relative reference.

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