The intended behavior for a link when activated by an application, specifically, the timing for obtaining or retrieving the content of a link (for example, by a user clicking on the link to request the material, or by the material being automatically loaded with a document when the document or document component is loaded).
| Value | Meaning | 
|---|---|
| none | The behavior is unconstrained, and no other markup is generally available in the link to assist an application in deducing the retrieval mechanism. | 
| onLoad | An application should retrieve the link at the same time a user obtains the initial document load. | 
| onRequest | An application should only retrieve the link after a user has physically triggered the retrieval, for example, clicked on the link. | 
| other | The behavior is unconstrained, but other markup is generally available in the link to assist an application in deducing the retrieval mechanism. |