In computing, a hyperlink is a reference or navigation element in a document to another section of the same document or to another document that may be on or part of a (different) domain.

"An electronic link providing direct access from one distinctively marked place in a hypertext or hypermedia document to another in the same or a different document"

Often abbreviated to "link". Hypertext (meaning "more than just" text) is a form of text typically published on websites that provides a richer functionality than simple text documents by enabling the reader to explore interesting links to other web pages linked to specific words or images within the page. Typically the words or image will be relevant to the linked page, for example Wikipedia home page, but badly designed or malicious sites may use obscure links or obfuscated links which make it hard to work out where the link will take you. A site that uses a lot of these obscure links is said to use "Mystery Meat navigation".

Embedded link

An embedded link is a navigation element included as part of an object such as hypertext or a hot area.

Example: The first word of this sentence: ("Example") is a navigation link embedded in a text object -- if the word is clicked, the browser will navigate to a different page.

Inline link

An inline link displays remote content without the need for embedding the content. The remote content may be accessed with or without the user selecting the link. Inline links may display specific parts of the content (e.g. thumbnail, low resolution preview, cropped sections, magnified sections, description text, etc.) and access other parts or the full content when needed, as is the case with print publishing software. This allows for smaller file sizes and quicker response to changes when the full linked content is not needed, as is the case when rearranging a page layout.

Hot area

A hot area (image map in HTML) is an invisible area of the screen that covers a text label or graphical images. A technical description of a hot area is a list of coordinates relating to a specific area on a screen created in order to hyperlink areas of the image to various destinations, disable linking via negative space around irregular shapes, or enable linking via invisible areas. For example, a political map of Africa may have each irregularly shaped country hyperlinked to further information about that country. A separate invisible hot area interface allows for swapping skins or labels within the linked hot areas without repetitive embedding of links in the various skin elements.