Links in Blog Posts

[Alex Aguilar]

Should links in blog posts be different colors or stand out so the user knows they are a link? I read that ALL LINKS should be clear so the user knows that they are a link.

If you click on my blog link down below "REAL ESTATE DO FOLLOW BLOG" you will see my most recent blog entry has all links with bright bold Orange font, should it be like this for all blog posts?

The other blog posts down below this have the same color for the links.

Any other RED FLAGS that you can help me out or let me know about would be much appreciated.

Thank you,

[htmlbasictutor]

From Jakob Nielsen's Alertbox (Usability Expert)

"Textual links should be colored and underlined to achieve the best perceived affordance of clickability, though there are a few exceptions to these guidelines....
Use different colors for visited and unvisited links. "

Reference: Guidelines for Visualizing Links

Usability.gov

"Use color changes to indicate to users when a link has been visited....

Generally, it is best to use the default text link colors (blue as an unvisited location/link and purple as a visited location/link). Link colors help users understand which parts of a Web site they have visited...."
page 8

"Provide sufficient cues to clearly indicate to users that an item is clickable." page 9

The above quotes are from the Usability.gov's Links chapter (opens a PDF file)

Users scan and also learn by repetition.

In your example, if I scanned, you established that the links are orange in the first section. After that, I'm going to look for orange wording when looking for links.

Your orange links also don't have a visited colour, as recommended by both of the above references.

[blazinjewel]

the above posted have said everything you need to know on links...

When you use colored links or at style it makes the link stand out and will catch attention from your visitors.

[kieransimkin]

It seems like you're asking the question "is it important that my links stand out?" - to which the answer is yes! You want to make it as easy as possible for people to navigate around your pages - if they have to hover over all of your text to determine whether it's a link or not, then that doesn't really make it easy for them. (Reminds me of those old roleplay games where if you were stuck you could just slowly scan across the screen with your mouse until the cursor changed and you found some hidden object that was key to advancing the plot).