Updated: Thursday, May 17, 2007

Thank you for your interest in linking to the American Heart Association and/or the American Stroke Association Web site(s). Our Web sites provide information for patients, caregivers, volunteers, consumers and healthcare professionals as part of the American Heart Association and American Stroke Association’s mission to help reduce disability and death from heart disease and stroke.

The American Heart Association and the American Stroke Association (collectively, "Association") encourage Web sites to link to the Association’s Web site(s).

Linking TO the American Heart Association and American Stroke Association Web Sites

Please refer to and use the following guidelines when setting up a link to the American Heart Association and American Stroke Association Web sites.

1. The Association does NOT endorse companies, products or services, and strictly prohibits any suggestion of endorsement, recommendation, or superiority of one company, product or service over another company, product or service.
   
   
2. The Association does not allow framing of its Web site(s). When setting up a link to the AHA’s Web site(s), the Association’s site should open in a new Web browser window rather than displaying the pages in a frame of the linking site’s Web template, when frames are used in the site’s design.
   
   
3. Links directly to the Association’s Web sites should be text-only and you may not use the Association’s stylized logo as a link, as our logo cannot be shown on your site.
   
   
4. You may use one of these lead-in sentences with your text link to the Association’s Web sites:

   The American Heart Association is a national voluntary health agency to help reduce disability and death from cardiovascular diseases and stroke.
   
   The American Stroke Association is solely focused on reducing disability and death from stroke.

5. The Association does not allow other Web sites to copy and reuse information or material(s) from the Association’s Web sites.

Exception: The exception to this rule is when a legal agreement is in place which directly specifies that a logo can be used on another party's Web site. The logo must be accompanied by a proclaimer that explains the nature of the American Heart Association's relationship with the other party. However, the logo itself cannot be used as a link - the logo can be on the Web site but the link itself must be text only.
In addition, the logo use must conform to our Branding Guidelines and any requirement set out in a written agreement.

Linking FROM the American Heart Association and American Stroke Association Web Sites

1. When the Association’s Web site includes links to other sites, the Association does not assume any responsibility or liability for any communications or materials available at the sites to which it links, including responsibility or liability for their accuracy. No link on the Association’s Web site is a referral or endorsement of either the linked-to entity or any product or service. Such links are provided for convenience only.
   
   
2. The Association does not provide links from the Association’s Web site(s) to external sites except as specified by a pre-existing sponsorship agreement/contract, partnership or other contractual business relationship.

Linking to an external site - the "two click" rule

Any link from the AHA/ASA Web site to an external Web site must abide by a two-click rule. This means that the first link goes to a "jump page" that explains the relationship between AHA/ASA and the other party. A link to the external Web site can be placed on this jump page, however, it must land on a general homepage, not a page that includes information about specific products or services.

Here is an example of a jump page in use:

http://www.americanheart.org/presenter.jhtml?identifier=3041247

The Association reserves the right to add, modify and delete these Guidelines at any time at the AHA's sole discretion.

For more information, please read our Copyright Policy.