A good answer might be:

The URL of the linked-to page is shown, as here:

Notice that the URL shown is the full URL of a file located on your own computer, not the file name alone, as was used in the anchor tag. This is useful when a link you have placed in a web page doesn't work, and you want to know where the browser is looking.

Relative Path Names

The picture shows a typical arrangement of web pages. The file (web page) myHome.html is a home page. This is a web page that outside sites will link to. It contains links that (ultimately) lead to all your other pages.

Usually all your other pages should (ultimately) link back to your homepage.

Often the files of a web site are placed in a directory structure: the home page and supporting files is placed in the main directory, and each separate web page (and supporting files) are placed in a subdirectory of the main directory.


To link from a page in the main directory to a page in a subdirectory do this: 

<a href="Pets/myPets.html">My Fine Pets</a>

This is called a relative path name because it shows were files are relative to the directory in which the linking page is located.

NOTE: The slash used to separate the subdirectory from the file is a forward slash "/" of UNIX not the backward slash of DOS. (This is because the Web was orginally done mostly on computers.)

To link back from myPets.html to myHome.html you need to go up one level in the directory structure. So myPets.html will have: 

<a href="../myHome.html">Back to Home</a>

An absolute path name consists of the disk name and all the subdirectories down to the one that contains the web page. An example of an absolute path name is shown in the answer to the question (above). Usually absolute path names are not used in anchor tags.

QUESTION 9:

(Thought question: ) Why is it awkward to use absolute path names in web pages?