Automatic hyperlinking
An autolink is a hyperlink added automatically to a hypermedia document, after it has been authored or published. Automatic hyperlinking describes the process or the software feature that produces autolinks. Segments of the hypermedia are identified through a process of pattern matching. For example, in hypertext, the software could recognise textual patterns for street addresses, phone numbers, ISBNs, or URLs.
In a distributed hypermedia system, such as the World Wide Web, autolinking can be carried out by client or server software. For example, a web server could add links to a web page as it sends it to a web browser. A browser can also add links to a page after it has received it from the server.
Examples
Google Toolbar
AutoLink was a feature of the Google Toolbar. Users could convert street addresses or ISBNs in a web page in their browser to links by clicking a button on Google Toolbar. The links directed the users to Google Maps for street addresses and Amazon.com for book information.Since it was introduced in February 2005, there has been a lot of controversy about this feature. Some webmasters expressed their concerns over the AutoLink feature claiming that Google had no rights to modify their webpages or to direct the users to a commercial website such as Amazon.
This caused Barnes & Noble, a competitor of Amazon, to link all ISBNs on their site back to themselves to prevent people clicking them to take them to their competitor.
Google sceptics compare it with Microsoft's unpopular SmartTags, which ultimately proved too controversial and were dropped.