css link color styles best practice

Question

There are many css-samples for styling color of links.

html5boilerplate.com offers such css code for link:

a { color: #00e; }
a:visited { color: #551         


        

Answer 1

Never remove that outline, or at least remove it only for a:active. If you do it for all anchors then it will be also removed for a:focus which is used for keyboard navigation. Also relying on hover too much is very bad since hover is not present on touch screens.

I like to have all links easily distinguishable from the rest of the content. This is my personal preference:

2016 version

/* The order is important! Do not use fixed values like px! Always check contrast between text and background for accessibility! */

a { border-bottom: thin solid;
    color: rgb(0,0,192);
    font-weight: bolder;
    text-decoration: none;
}
a:visited { color: rgb(160,0,160); }
a:active { color: rgb(192,0,0); }
a:active, a:focus, a:hover { border-bottom-width: medium; }

2015 version

a { border-bottom: thin solid;
    color: rgb(0,0,192);
    font-weight: 700;
    text-decoration: none;
}
a:visited { color: rgb(128,0,128); }
a:active { color: rgb(192,0,0); } /* :active MUST come after :visited */
a:active, a:focus, a:hover { border-bottom-width: medium; }

2014 version

a { border-bottom: 1px solid;
    color: rgb(0,0,166);
    font-weight: 700;
    text-decoration: none;
}
a:visited { color: rgb(122,0,122); }
a:active { color: rgb(166,0,0); } /* :active MUST come after :visited */
a:active, a:focus, a:hover { border-bottom: 3px solid; }

2013 version

a { color: rgb(0,0,166);
    font-weight: 700;
    border-bottom: 1px dotted;
    text-decoration: none;
}
a:visited { color: rgb(122,0,122); }
a:hover, a:focus, a:active { border-bottom: 2px solid; }
a:focus, a:active { color: rgb(166,0,0); }