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CSS CSS Basics (2014) Understanding Values and Units Styling the Intro Paragraph

a: link vs a: unvisited

Why dosen't a:unvisited exist, when a:visited does

1 Answer

Steven Parker
Steven Parker
231,275 Points

You don't need a separate pseudo class for unvisited, since once you define a rule for visited links, all the unvisited ones will have the properties defined simply as "links". For example:

a:link { color: purple; }  /* unvisited links will be purple */
a:visited { color: red; }  /* because visited ones are red */

I'm not sure if you answered what I was asking, why are they called a:link instead of a:unvisted

Steven Parker
Steven Parker
231,275 Points

I expect the name ":link" is because it pertains to all links when used by itself. But when you override it with ":visited" it then affects only the unvisited links. So that's why they didn't need a separate one named "unvisited".