 I&#39;ve never seen [`&lt;base&gt;` HTML tag][1]  actually used anywhere before.  Are there pitfalls to its use that means I should avoid it?

The fact that I have never noticed it in use on a modern production site (or any site) makes me leery of it, though it seems like it might have useful applications for simplifying links on my site.

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### Edit

After using the base tag for a few weeks, I did end up finding some **major** gotchas with using the base tag that make it much less desirable than it first appeared.  Essentially, the changes to `href=&#39;#topic&#39;` and `href=&#39;&#39;` under the base tag are *very* incompatible with their default behavior, and this change from the default behavior could easily make third party libraries outside of your control **very unreliable**  in unexpected ways, since they will logically depend on the default behavior.  Often the changes are subtle and lead to not-immediately-obvious problems when dealing with a large codebase.  I have since created an answer detailing the issues that I experienced below.  So test the link results for yourself before you commit to a widespread deployment of `&lt;base&gt;`, is my new advice!

  [1]: http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/struct/links.html#h-12.4

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What are the recommendations for html <base> tag?