Is there a way to link to the middle of a webpage?

April 20, 2004 9:35 AM

How do you post a link to the middle of pages? I have seen that here where people post to specific replies in a long thread.
thanks
posted by busboy789 to computers & internet (5 comments total)

In a metafilter thread, click the hyperlinked time of a particular comment and you'll find the unique address for that comment. Then use that address in your link just like any other.

I'll come back and talk about who to do this more generally, i.e. on other websites, a bit later when I have more time, unless someone beats me to it first :)
posted by nthdegx at 9:50 AM on April 20, 2004

In general it's about anchor links. If a link has a #blahblahblah after the URL then that points to a location within the given page, a bookmark of sorts. So like in the middle of an HTML page, if I put a:

<a name="thisishalfwaydownomglook"></a>

Then a link to like "page.php#thisishalfwaydownomglook" then when a user clicks on that link they will be taken down to the appropriate anchor/bookmark.
posted by xmutex at 9:57 AM on April 20, 2004

here's a link to nthdegx's comment, above...I used the 9:50 AM link to do it A lot of blogs and other sites have date stamps like that...they're almost always linkable.
posted by amberglow at 10:02 AM on April 20, 2004

But in general, there is no way to link to the middle of an arbitrary page. The page's author has to put a little bit of code into the page, called an anchor (like xmutex illustrated above). Then, if you can somehow divine that they've done that, and suss out what name they've given to that anchor, you can link to it. The bookmarklet described here will highlight the anchors in a page so you can link to them, but if there's no anchor at the point you want to link to, you're out of luck.
posted by gleuschk at 5:27 PM on April 20, 2004

thanks for the replies. It is nice to know how all of you metafites like replies. I was hoping there was some secret trick to mark a certain point on any page that I wish. Oh well, if this is the worst information I read tonight, it will be a great night!
posted by busboy789 at 5:40 PM on April 20, 2004