link relation "external", was: Link relation types and validity in <link>, was: ACTION-182 and Issue-27

On 05.08.2010 14:25, Julian Reschke wrote:
> ...
> 2) The definition of "external" is:
>
> "Indicates that the referenced document is not part of the same site as
> the current document."
>
> First of all, this doesn't sound terrible useful. Where does it come from?
>
> But, assuming it *is* useful, why wouldn't it apply to <link>?
> ...

I just found 
<http://blog.whatwg.org/the-road-to-html-5-link-relations#rel-external>:

"rel=external  "indicates that the link is leading to a document that is 
not part of the site that the current document forms a part of." I 
believe it was first popularized by WordPress, which uses it on links 
left by commenters. I could not find any discussion of it in the HTML 
working group mailing list archives. Both its existence and its 
definition appear to be entirely uncontroversial."

Well, not anymore ;-)

If the use case actually *is* what Mark P. writes here, than it 
definitely overlaps with "nofollow", and is *not* what the description 
in the spec is about.

Best regards, Julian

Received on Thursday, 5 August 2010 14:54:36 UTC