Test results: link element

The HTML specification suggests that the link element can be used by search engines to find alternate translations of the current page, but doesn't specify exactly how. Some browsers expose the link information on the user interface.

These are the results of a test of some mainstream browsers. The test is written in XHTML 1.0 and served as text/html.

Results

IE 6.0

This version of IE does not expose the link information on the user interface.

Mozilla 1.7.2

This version of Mozilla exposes the link information in View > Page Info > Links and via a navigation toolbar.

Page Info: All alternate links are listed. Neither information in the title nor hreflang attributes is shown - just the URI.

How it looks on Mozilla 1.7.2.

Toolbar: Links are listed under More > Other Versions.

All alternate links are listed, including those with duplicate URIs.

The information in the title attributes is shown, and the Arabic runs from right to left.

The hreflang information for fr, ar, es and en is converted to English words. I didn't test this on a non-English interface.

hreflang information for fr-CH and the non-existent zz language was missing, but a semicolon still appeared between the empty location of the hreflang information and the title information.

No hreflang information was shown for ja.

Firefox 0.9.3

Out of the box, this version of Firefox only exposes the link information in View > Page Info > Links.

All alternate links are listed. Neither information in the title nor hreflang attributes is shown - just the URI.

Firefox 0.9.3 with Link Toolbar Extension 0.8

This version of Firefox exposes the link information in View > Page Info > Links and with version 0.8 of the Link Toolbar extension via a navigation toolbar.

Page Info: All alternate links are listed. Neither information in the title nor hreflang attributes is shown - just the URI.

How it looks on Firefox 0.9.3 with Link Toolbar extension v0.8.

Toolbar: Links are listed under Other Versions after clicking on the folder icon.

All alternate links are listed except that for 'fr2', where the href URI is a repeat of that in a previous link.

The information in the title attributes is shown, where the link item is shown, and the Arabic runs from right to left.

No hreflang information is shown. [Note: This is different from earlier versions of the link toolbar extension.]

Opera 7.54

This version of Opera does not expose the link information related to alternative translations, even though it exposes other link information such as 'top' and 'next' in Navigation > Site Navigation, and in a navigation toolbar.

Netscape Navigator 7.1

This version of Navigator only exposes the link information in View > Page Info > Links out of the box.

All alternate links are listed. Neither information in the title nor hreflang attributes is shown - just the URI.

Summary

This summary is based on the versions tested above.

Internet Explorer and Opera do not do anything with the link information related to translations.

Firefox, Mozilla, and Netscape all showed the information in the Page Info dialog. Only Mozilla displayed the information directly on the UI, although a similar result could be achieved in Firefox with the use of an extension. Opera displayed other information in link elements directly on the UI, but not translation related information.

Further reading

Author: Richard Ishida (W3C).

Content created 13 July, 2004. Last update 2004-11-02 12:14 GMT

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