The term nthlink describes a simple but powerful idea: a standardized way to reference the nth element or hop within a chain of links or resources. Where ordinary hyperlinks point at a single resource, nthlink communicates not only the target but also the position in a sequence, the provenance of the link, and an optional context that explains why that position matters. This enables more granular navigation, reproducible citations, and richer programmatic handling of linked content. Why nthlink matters On modern websites and in distributed systems, content often lives in ordered sequences — comments in a thread, revisions in a document history, or nodes in a conversation graph. Saying “link to the third reply” is more precise than “link to a reply,” but conventional hyperlinks do not encode that positional detail. nthlink fills this gap. It can improve user experience by taking readers directly to the relevant item in a sequence, help researchers and archivists preserve context, and give APIs a simple way to request or return indexed items with provenance. A simple specification A minimal nthlink model has three parts: - Target resource: the canonical URI of the sequence (e.g., a thread or document). - Index n: a zero- or one-based integer indicating the position. - Context metadata (optional): information about ordering criteria, timestamp, author, or how the index should be interpreted. Applied in HTTP APIs, nthlink could appear as a query parameter (e.g., /thread/123?n=3) or as a link relation in response headers or hypermedia (Link: