A system and method for designing web pages that enables web designers to place hyperlinks to web pages independent of any hierarchical relationship between the pages of the website. A link bar element is provided within a description of the website. The link bar element includes a persistent set of links, each link corresponding to one of several content files. One or more of the content files may be a web file. The link bar element is associated with at least one web file by including a link bar name in the at least one web file. In addition, other link bar information is stored in the web file and a description of the website is stored in a description file separate from the at least one web file that is associated with the link bar element. The description file includes an identifier for the link bar node and the one or more links. Based on the link bar element included within the web file, the description file is translated into additional instructions configured to cause a browser to create web links on a corresponding web page. The web links correspond to the one or more links in the link bar element.