The href property of the HTMLAnchorElement interface is a stringifier that returns the absolute URL corresponding to the element's href attribute (or an empty string if href is unset). Setting this property updates the element's href attribute to the provided value.

Value

A string.

• If the href attribute is absent, the value is an empty string ("").
• If the href attribute is present but is not a valid relative or absolute URL, the value is the attribute's value as-is.
• If the href attribute is present and is a valid relative or absolute URL, the value is the absolute URL, resolved relative to the document's base URL. The empty string ("") is considered a valid relative URL, resolving to the document's base URL.

Examples

A freshly created <a> element has no href attribute, so its href property returns an empty string.

const anchor = document.createElement("a");
console.log(anchor.href); // ""

If the attribute is set to an empty string, the property returns the document's base URL because the empty string is a valid relative URL.

anchor.href = "";
console.log(anchor.href); // "https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/HTMLAnchorElement/href"

If the attribute is set to a relative URL, the property returns the absolute URL resolved against the document's base URL.

anchor.href = "../../..";
console.log(anchor.href); // "https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/"

Note that the attribute's value remains as set, without resolution.

console.log(anchor.getAttribute("href")); // "../../.."

If the attribute is set to an absolute URL, the property returns that absolute URL as-is.

anchor.href = "https://example.com/path";
console.log(anchor.href); // "https://example.com/path"

If the attribute is set to an invalid URL, the property returns the attribute's value as-is.

anchor.href = "https://";
console.log(anchor.href); // "https://"

Specifications

Browser compatibility

See also

• The HTMLAnchorElement interface it belongs to.