Should I use rel=index or rel=contents in this instance?

Question

I’m creating an MMA website. There’s the home page, there’s a fighters section whose index page lists fighters in the organisation, and then each fighter has a profile page. The URL structure is like this:

/
/fighters/
/fighters/john-doe

My question is: on the fighter’s profile page I want to link to the fighters index page (/fighters). In my HTML page, which meta tag would be the most appropriate?

<link href="/fighters/" rel="index" />

Or:

<link href="/fighters/" rel="contents" />

I’m having trouble distinguishing which would be best, and whether rel="index" would be the index for the whole site or the current page/section I’m viewing?

Answer 1

There seems to be no evidence of browsers or search engines doing anything with either of the link types index and contents. Thus, using them appears to be futile, even though they are mentioned in the HTML 4.01 specification, with vague descriptions. Only index is mentioned in the existing rel values document (cited in the HTML5 CR). Neither of these descriptive documents gives a solid definition of what the link types would really mean, and this is part of the reasons for their being ignored.

You should have a normal link (<a href=...>...</a>) in the body of the document. This lets both users and search engines access the site index. Normal links are what search engines primarily use; link elements are metadata, largely write-only code (i.e., futily written attempts at affecting search engines).