What does Jakob Nielsen say about HTML anchor links?
Following are the five main guidelines for links: • Make obvious what’s clickable: for text links, use colored, underlined text (and don’t underline non-link text). • Differentiate visited and unvisited links. • Explain what users will find at the other end of the link, and include some of the key information-carrying terms in the anchor text itself to enhance scannability and search engine optimization (SEO). Don’t use “click here” or other non-descriptive link text. • Avoid JavaScript or other fancy techniques that break standard interaction techniques for dealing with links. • In particular, don’t open pages in new windows except for PDF files and such). Links are the Web’s number one interaction element. Violating common expectations for how links work is a sure way to confuse and delay users, and might prevent them from being able to use your site.
