The tab on the top link bar is not selected when you connect to a Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 subsite

Consider the following scenario. A Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 site collection has more than one subsite. Links to each subsite are displayed as tabs on the top link bar of the top-level site. When you click a tab in the top link bar, you connect to the subsite as expected. However, the tab for that subsite is not selected. Instead, the tab for another subsite is selected.

For example, the site collection has two subsites named Subsite1 and Subsite2. The top link bar contains a Home tab, a Subsite1 tab, and a Subsite2 tab. When you click the Subsite2 tab to browse that subsite, the Subsite1 tab remains selected.

This issue occurs if the following conditions are true:

• When you create the subsite, you specify that you do not want to display a link to the subsite on the top link bar
• You manually add a link to the subsite on the top link bar.
• The link that you add uses an absolute URL.

In this scenario, the tab is not selected when you browse that subsite.

To work around this issue, change the link on the top link bar to use a relative URL. For example, if the absolute URL of a subsite is http://ServerName/Subsite1/default.aspx, change the URL to /Subsite1/default.aspx. To do this, follow these steps:

1. Connect to the top-level Web site.
2. Click Site Actions, and then click Site Settings.
3. On the Site Settings page, click Top link bar under Look and Feel.
4. Click the Edit button next to the name of the subsite whose link you want to modify.
5. In the Type the Web address box of the Edit Link page, type the relative URL of the subsite. For example, type /SubsiteName/default.aspx. Then, click OK.