An essential part of building any website is creating links that lead from one page to another.  From just about any page on your Our School Pages website, you can create links that will take your visitors to a different page.  The page on which the link is placed is called the origin page, and the page that the link leads to is called the destination page.  The destination page could be another page on your own Our School Pages website, or a page on an external website.

External pages

Before creating a link, you need to know the address (or URL) of the destination page where you are trying to take the user.  The address can usually just be copied right out of the Address bar in your browser.  For example, if you want the user to be able to click on a link to get to Google (an external website), the destination page address would simply be:

http://google.com

The address might also be a specific page on an external website, such as:

http://www.wastatepta.org/programs/index.html

Some example addresses of pages on an Our School Pages website are:

http://lakesidepta.ourschoolpages.com/Page/Pta/BoardMembers
http://lakesidepta.ourschoolpages.com/Event
http://lakesidepta.ourschoolpages.com/Article/View/123

Or, if your Our School Pages website has a custom domain, then your addresses might look something like:

http://lakesidepta.org/Page/Pta/BoardMembers
http://lakesidepta.org/Event
http://lakesidepta.org/Article/View/123

Internal pages

If the origin website is the same as the destination website, then you may optionally choose to use a shortened form of the web address, which omits the protocol and domain name.  This shorthand form works the exact same as the full form, and is only a matter of convenience.  For example, if you are linking from a page on your website to another page on the same website, then instead of using the long address:

http://lakesidepta.ourschoolpages.com/Page/Pta/BoardMembers

you can use the shorthand form:

/Page/Pta/BoardMembers

Just a reminder, though, that this works only if the link is placed on the same website as the destination.  If you are placing the link in an email or on your Facebook page, for example, you would need to use the long address.

Email address links

There is a special type of link which does not lead the user to another page.  Instead, it allows them to send an email to a specific email address.  This is called a mailto link, and is formatted as follows:

mailto:info@ourschoolpages.com

When a user clicks on a link that has this type of address, the user's email program (e.g, Outlook, etc.) will be launched, a new email window will be opened, and the To: address will be prepopulated with the email address specified in the link.