A link element with no rel has no defined meaning and is ignored. A stylesheet that loads nowhere looks identical in the markup to one that works.
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How this rule is weighted
- Importance
- 4 / 10
- How much this matters relative to other rules.
- Confidence
- SPECIFICATION
- A standard says so: HTML, WCAG, an RFC or Google's own documentation.
- Severity
- warning
- How the finding is presented when it fails.
- Scoring
- Counts
- A failure costs points in its category.
Impact is importance multiplied by the confidence tier’s weight — SPECIFICATION 1.0, RESEARCH 0.7, EMERGING 0.3, EXPERIMENTAL 0.1. Two rules backed by the same class of evidence therefore always carry the same weight, which is what makes the score reproducible rather than hand-tuned.
Questions about this rule
- Does HTML_LINK_REL_PRESENT affect my score?
- Yes. It is an importance 4 rule at SPECIFICATION confidence, so a failure costs 4 × 1 points of impact in the HTML category before that category is normalised to 100.
- What does SPECIFICATION confidence mean?
- A standard says so: HTML, WCAG, an RFC or Google's own documentation. Confidence is a declared tier rather than a per-rule number, so every rule backed by the same class of evidence carries the same weight - which is what makes the score reproducible instead of hand-tuned.
- How do I check HTML_LINK_REL_PRESENT on my own site?
- Paste your URL into the box above and it runs only this rule, usually in a couple of seconds. It is also included in the HTML checker and in a full scan.
Tags
- html
- w3c
- validity
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