A hyperlink (or just ‘link’ for short), is a piece of text or an image on a webpage that you can click to go to another webpage or a specified email address.

Creating Links to a Page on Your Website

When creating links to a page on your website, you need to only use the file name of the page you are linking to as the link address. For example, if you are creating a link to the Customer Service page on your site, your link would be coded as:

<a href="site_customer_service.asp">Link Text or Image</a>
NOT
<a href="http://www.yourbookstore.com/site_customer_service.asp">Link Text or Image</a>

WARNING: When clicked, the latter link will take you out of your staging site and into your live site. You may not initially notice this, but it can cause problems, such as losing the contents of your shopping cart.

To make it so when you click a link on the staging site, you stay on the staging site, and when you click a link on the live site, you stay on the live site – use the first link format above. This is called a relative link and will work correctly on either the staging or live website.

Creating a Text Link to a Page on Your Website

In the file/folder list, navigate to the file you wish to edit and double-click it to edit the file.
Type the text you would like use as a link. For example, “Customer Service”.
In the Design view (bottom pane), highlight the link text.
Right-click the text you highlighted and select Hyperlink.
In the Address field, enter the file name of the page you want to link to. For example, to link to the Extended Rush Hours page, enter site_extendedhours.asp.
Click OK.
Save the page.
Test the link by going to the page in your web browser and clicking it to make sure it goes to the correct destination.
Note: If you already have the page open in your web browser, you will need to refresh the page.

Creating an Image Link to a Page on Your Website

In the file/folder list, navigate to the file you wish to edit and double-click it to edit the file.
Insert the image you would like to use as the link.
In the Design view, click once on the image to select it.
Right-click the image and select Hyperlink.
In the Address field, enter the file name of the page you want to link to. For example, to link to the About Us page, enter site_about_us.asp.
Click OK.
Save the page.
Test the link by going to the page in your web browser and clicking it to make sure it goes to the correct destination.
Note: If you already have the page open in your web browser, you will need to refresh the page.

Creating Links to Another Website

In the file/folder list, navigate to the file you wish to edit and double-click it.
Type the text you would like use as a link. For example, “Visit the Campus Website”.
In the Design view (bottom pane), highlight the link text.
Right-click the text you highlighted and select Hyperlink.
In the Address field, enter the address of the website you want to link to. For example, to link to the PrismRBS website, enter http://www.prismrbs.com.
Optionally, you can have the website you are linking to open in a new window or tab when the link is clicked. To configure this, click the Target Frame button and choose New Window, and then click OK.
Click OK.
Save the page.
Test the link by going to the page in your web browser and clicking it to make sure it goes to the correct destination.
Note: If you already have the page open in your web browser, you will need to refresh the page.

Creating Links to an Email Address

In the file/folder list, navigate to the file you wish to edit and double-click it to edit the file.
Type the text you would like use as a link. For example, “Email the Bookstore”.
In the Design view (bottom pane), highlight the link text.
Right-click the text you highlighted and select Hyperlink.
Click the E-mail Address button on the left side of the dialog box.
In the E-mail address field, enter the email address that you would like to have the email be sent to.
Note: When entering the email address, ‘mailto:’ will be added to the beginning of the address – this is normal and should not be removed.
Optionally in the Subject field, enter a subject line for the email.
Click OK.
Save the page.
Test the link by going to the page in your web browser and clicking it to make sure it opens a new email with correct address and subject line.
Note: If you already have the page open in your web browser, you will need to refresh the page.

Creating Links to a Catalog Group, Catalog, or Product on Your Website

Creating a link to a catalog group, catalog, or an individual product is very similar to linking to a page within your website. When building a link to a catalog group, catalog, or product, your link URL will be a little different. Instead of the URL being just a page with an ASP extension, your URL will also contain a question mark character (?) and a sequence of characters after that.

To find the correct URL to use, open your web browser and navigate to the catalog group, catalog, or product you want to link to. Once you’re on that page, refer to the address bar in your web browser. The link URL you will want to use is everything in the address bar after the “root” address of your site (http://staging.prismservices.net/projectname/).
- If you are linking to a catalog group, the link URL will begin with: shop_main.asp
- If you are linking to a catalog, the link URL will begin with: shop_product_list.asp
- If you are linking to a product, the link URL will begin with: shop_product_detail.asp
In your browser’s address bar, highlight the page name above and also highlight everything to the right of it. Since the URL could be quite long, it may be easier to highlight the entire URL in your browser, and copy and paste the URL into a blank file in a text editor like Notepad. Your edited URL should look a little something like this (this example is to an individual product): shop_product_detail.asp?catalog_group_id=MQ&catalog_group_name=R2VuZXJhbCBNZXJjaGFuZGlzZQ&catalog_id=4&catalog_name=VC1TaGlydHMgJiBTaG9ydHM&pf_id=38&product_name=VC1TaGlydCBNc3UgU2VhbCBCeSBHZWFy&type=1&target=shop_product_list.asp
Note: If you are familiar or more comfortable working with HTML code, you can also get the URLs mentioned above within the PrismWeb Manager. Navigate to the catalog group, catalog, or product that you wish to link to, copy the code from the manager, and paste it where you want it in your HTML page code.
In your HTML editor, add a link to a page within your website normally. In the Address field of the hyperlink properties, paste the URL you copied from your browser.
Click OK.
Save the page.
Test the link by going to the page in your web browser and clicking it to make sure it goes to the correct destination.
Note: If you already have the page open, you will need to refresh the page.

First Published 06/24/2020

Edited 06/24/2020