Simply straightforward question, but one for which I cannot find any suggestions.
Supported HTML5 values that are appropriate are:
- author
- first
- last
- next
- prev
- help
- license (not “licence”)
Example
Navigation consisting of index, about, contact & legal
..from the perspective of the index.html page:
- index.html with rel=”first”
- about.html with rel=author next”
- contact.html with rel=”help”
- legal.html with rel=”license last”
…from the perspective of the contact.html page:
- index.html with rel=”first”
- about.html with rel=author prev”
- contact.html with rel=”help”
- legal.html with rel=”license next last”
I accept that the use of rel in navigation will achieve very little; but it might help Search Engines in some small way.
I gave the examples both as a demonstration of how this would work in practise and for critique!
Kind Regards,
Dale
Edits to examples from comments below
Navigation consisting of index, about, contact & legal
..from the perspective of the index.html page:
- index.html with no rel
- about.html with rel=author”
- contact.html with rel=”help”
- legal.html with rel=”license”
…from the perspective of the contact.html page:
- index.html with no rel
- about.html with rel=author”
- contact.html with rel=”help”
- legal.html with rel=”license”
Good Question ! To be honest i’m no expert with the rel attribute (so someone correct me if i’m wrong) but from what i can find Google can verify an identity on a web page via the attribute. Such as
<a rel="me" href="https://plus.google.com/110037486217106671520">Luke Southam</a>i know this is off the subject of site navigation but it shows Google is reading and indexing the attribute within the
<a></a>tag. As for using it within site navigation, if it (possibly) helps Google (or other search engines) to index your website better I say go for it.