The SMS Web Link facility offers a simple and transparent means of accessing a Website without the complications inherent in WAP-based solutions.

With the SMS Web Link facility, the incoming text message is processed by the TEXT-back Message Centre and triggers an HTTP request to a pre-defined Website Optionally, a keyword topic as the first word of the text message can direct the HTTP request to different pages of a Website or even to different Websites

The HTTP request passes data to the Website identifying the mobile number, the sending time and the content of the text message itself. In addition, the HTTP request identifies the mobile as a specific type of web browser unique to the SMS Web Link service. A Website designer is able to test for the browser type and format the response data accordingly. Most web designers already perform this type of test in order to avoid incompatibilities between the various browser versions.

The Website is able to use the content of the fields containing the mobile number, and possibly the text of the SMS message itself, to further qualify the request and refine the data that is returned. The Website issues the response data in exactly the same way as for a normal browser and the TEXT-back Message Centre formats this data into a response text message that is returned to the requesting mobile.

A Website designed to test for the browser type is therefore able to service requests from mobiles as well as from conventional Internet browsers without needing to resort to complicated WAP WML (Wireless Markup Language) coding. The response data for the 'SMS Web Link browser' needs to be formatted as plain ASCII data and so is simpler to generate than both HTML and WML.