Style External Links with CSS
Styling external links is a common practice on most informational sites likes Wikipedia. As a user, it's nice to know when you're being sent to another resource. Many sites do the external links check on the server side, adding a `rel=external` attribute value or `external` class to external links. In some cases that isn't possible or plausible. After trolling around the interwebs, I found the following useful CSS snippet for styling external links:
/* long version */
a[href^="http://"]:not([href*="mysite.com"]),
a[href^="https://"]:not([href*="mysite.com"]),
a[href^="//"]:not([href*="mysite.com"]), {
}
/* shorter version! */
a[href*="//"]:not([href*="mysite.com"]) {
/* external link styles, use :before or :after if you want! */
}
First you have to qualify the start of the link, then qualify the domain. Internal links wont match and external links wont match the comparison. A useful snippet and something to keep in your library in case you need it!
![I’m an Impostor]()
This is the hardest thing I've ever had to write, much less admit to myself. I've written resignation letters from jobs I've loved, I've ended relationships, I've failed at a host of tasks, and let myself down in my life. All of those feelings were very...
![Interview with a Pornhub Web Developer]()
Regardless of your stance on pornography, it would be impossible to deny the massive impact the adult website industry has had on pushing the web forward. From pushing the browser's video limits to pushing ads through WebSocket so ad blockers don't detect them, you have...
![RealTime Stock Quotes with MooTools Request.Stocks and YQL]()
It goes without saying but MooTools' inheritance pattern allows for creation of small, simple classes that possess immense power. One example of that power is a class that inherits from Request, Request.JSON, and Request.JSONP: Request.Stocks. Created by Enrique Erne, this great MooTools class acts as...
![iPhone-Style Passwords Using MooTools PassShark]()
Every once in a while I come across a plugin that blows me out of the water and the most recent culprit is PassShark: a MooTools plugin that duplicates the iPhone's method of showing/hiding the last character in a password field. This gem of...
What if there is a link in my website like http://external.com/?referer=mysite.com ?
You add can another pattern match for whichever referer pattern you use:
a[href*="?referer"] { /* external styles */ }Thanks for the snippets :)
David, you can do the same with shorter selector:
[href*="//"]:not([href*="mysite.com"]) { }Thanks for the code :)
Nice snippets, I love this but how about browser compatibility?
So, what styles are typically used for external websites? A change in font color? Background color?
Is have used this slidely different for my wordpress site:
/* show external links differently */ a[href^="http://"]:not([href*="mydomain.com"]):before{ content: " "; width: 16px; height: 16px; background: no-repeat url('images/link.gif'); padding-right: 1.2em; }How to ignore Links With images?
example: http://jsfiddle.net/Ridermansb/NRw97/1/
@Riderman You don’t. CSS is designed to to be applied in one traversal of the DOM tree. This limits it to selectors that are based solemnly on what was before (higher up) in the dom tree. You cannot select on what comes after/deeper in the DOM tree in CSS.
In your example you are trying to style an a element based on the fact, that an img element is deeper in the tree.
Solution: use a css-class for such a elements that should ignore the styling done through the [href=??] matching selectors.
a.no-external-link-style {
/*undo styling through a[href*=”//”]:not([href*=”mysite.com”]) */
}
@Riderman Use JS / jQuery to add a class to links that wrap images, then add a css rule that removes or hides your
:before, based on that class. I’m using:after, and FontAwesome..jQuery('a img').parent().addClass('linked-img');a[href*="//"]:not([href*="mysite.com"]):after { font-family: FontAwesome; content: "\f08e"; font-size: 13px; color: #ccc; padding-left: 7px; } a.linked-img:after { display: none; }