What Is A Deep Link?

Date First Published: 15th November 2022

Topic: Web Design & Development

Subtopic: Web Development

Article Type: Computer Terms & Definitions

Difficulty Level: 4/10

Learn more about what a deep link is in this article.

A deep link is a hyperlink pointing to a specific page on a website (e.g. https://example.com/directory/article-1.html') rather than the homepage of a website (e.g. 'https://example.com'). It is called a 'deep' link as it refers to the depth in the hierarchical structure of pages. Any page below the top page in the hierarchy (the homepage) is considered 'deep'. For example, if someone linked to this article, it would be considered a deep link, but if they linked to the homepage, it would not be a deep link. Most links are deep links as without them, users would have to manually type URLs to specific pages within the website, which is time-consuming.

Note:

Deep linking is not to be confused with mobile deep linking, which refers to directly linking to in-app content using a non-HTTP URI.

Usage

According to the W3C Technical Architecture Group, "any attempt to forbid the practice of deep linking is based on a misunderstanding of the technology, and threatens to undermine the functioning of the Web as a whole". Some commercial websites may prohibit other websites from making deep links to their content because they think that a user may not know who is providing the information or that it would reduce the amount of advertising displayed to visitors of the website.

An example of a legal case was when Microsoft deep-linked to Ticketmaster's site from its Sidewalk service. Ticketmaster then sued Microsoft with the claim that they had linked without their permission and had been deprived of advertising viewers for the ads on their homepage. Their content was appearing within a Microsoft page containing their advertising. The case was settled when Microsoft and Ticketmaster arranged a licensing agreement.

Ticketmaster filed a similar case against Tickets.com and the judge said that linking was legal as long as it was clear who the linked pages belonged to. The court also came to the conclusion that URLs themselves were not copyrightable, writing: "A URL is simply an address, open to the public, like the street address of a building, which, if known, can enable the user to reach the building. There is nothing sufficiently original to make the URL a copyrightable item, especially the way it is used. There appear to be no cases holding the URLs to be subject to copyright. On principle, they should not be."