How to make an HTML back link?

Question

What is the simplest way to create an tag that links to the previous web page? Basically a simulated back button, but an actual hyperlink. Client-side

Answer 1

This solution gives you the best of both worlds

• Users get to hover over the link to see the URL
• Users don't end up with a corrupted back-stack

More details in the code comments below.

var element = document.getElementById('back-link');

// Provide a standard href to facilitate standard browser features such as 
//  - Hover to see link
//  - Right click and copy link
//  - Right click and open in new tab
element.setAttribute('href', document.referrer);

// We can't let the browser use the above href for navigation. If it does, 
// the browser will think that it is a regular link, and place the current 
// page on the browser history, so that if the user clicks "back" again,
// it'll actually return to this page. We need to perform a native back to
// integrate properly into the browser's history behavior
element.onclick = function() {
  history.back();
  return false;
}

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