A means of coding text (a word or phrase) in electronic documents (such as web pages and e-mail messages) so that clicking on the text causes a different document or another part of the same document to be displayed. Hypertext is usually distinguished from surrounding text by use of a different font color, underlining, and other visual indicators. Web pages (which are commonly coded in HTML or hypertext markup language) use hypertext to enable linking, the primary method of navigation within pages and websites and from site to site.

For more information, see Practice Note, Online Advertising and Marketing: Linking, Framing, Metatags, Banners, Pop-Ups, and Keywords.