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Click HereClick here is a phrase that often appears as the link text of a hyperlink on a webpage. Many web publishers simply use the instinctive Click here link text to direct visitors to either another part of their site, or somewhere else on the Web. It is the equivalent to tick here or check here on a paper form. As such, this has led to the phrase being probably the most popular link text on the World Wide Web, besides the generic term homepage. Criticisms against this practice This practice, regarded by some as the practice of untrained web designers, received many criticisms from many web design authorities. They are mostly built on the reasons of browser emphasis, non-printability, and redundancy. Browser emphasis: It is common for web links to stand out against the text when pages are viewed in a web browser. These links that stand out, however, would not offer information regarding where the link leads to. It is generally more user-friendly for the stand-out text to directly contain the information regarding the link. For this reason, the World Wide Web Consortium, through its Quality Tips for Webmasters, advises web designers to avoid using "click here" as link text. http://www.w3.org/QA/Tips/noClickHere Non-printability: Users may want to print web pages for reference. When pages with click here as link text is printed out, click here would seem absurd for the person who is viewing the printout. For this reason, Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the Web, through his Style Guide for online hypertext, advices web designers to "try to avoid references in the text to online aspect". http://www.w3.org/Provider/Style/Printable.html Redundancy: As noted under "browser emphasis" above, a webpage will generally have alternate formatting for links so that they are easily identified. Therefore, using the phrase "click here" for a link is redundant because users already know the link can be clicked upon. Because the phrase "click here" is redundant, it is usually easy to avoid. For example, "Click here to visit my guestbook" (the underlined phrase representing the link) might be rewritten, "You may visit my guestbook", or if the phrase does not appear within other text, perhaps standing on its own at the bottom of the page, it might be simply "Visit my guestbook" or even just "My guestbook".
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