ARCHIVED: What are hyperlinks?

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A hyperlink, or hot link, is a selectable element in an electronic document that serves as an access point to other electronic resources. Typically, you click the hyperlink to access the linked resource. Familiar hyperlinks include buttons, icons, image maps, and clickable text links.

Material containing hyperlinks is often called hypertext (although not all hypertext contains hyperlinks). Hypertext systems can be very simple, such as a text document with internal references, or very large and complex, such as the World Wide Web.