How to get href value using jQuery?

It works... Tested in IE8 (don't forget to allow javascript to run if you're testing the file from your computer) and chrome.

You need

var href = $(this).attr('href');

Inside a jQuery click handler, the this object refers to the element clicked, whereas in your case you're always getting the href for the first <a> on the page. This, incidentally, is why your example works but your real code doesn't

It's worth mentioning that

$('a').attr('href'); // gets the actual value
$('a').prop('href'); // gets the full URL always

You can get current href value by this code:

$(this).attr("href");

To get href value by ID

$("#mylink").attr("href");