October 30, 2003 · Dan Cederholm

SimpleQuiz › Smart Linking › Conclusion

Certainly some great discussion on smart hyperlinking methods. Many like B over the other three examples. I think I like this one best as well. The link is surrounding the description of exactly what it's pointing to. Using a title attribute can be helpful if for some reason the text you're using isn't descriptive enough, or to name the document you're linking to.

Option C's use of "Click here" text was a hot topic of discussion as well. I tend to think, in general, it's not always a good idea for the following reasons that many of the readers shared:

  • Not everyone uses a mouse to navigate a web page, therefore the word "Click" doesn't make sense for every situation.
  • If "Click here" text is used repeatedly on a page, a screenreader that reads off a list of links found on that page would basically be saying "Click here. Click here. Click here." over and over again. Being more descriptive about what the link is will help.
  • Visually scanning the page for links would reveal little about what is being linked to.

Another thing to keep in mind, and this was brought a few times, is how being descriptive when building links can help search engine spidering.