Will Not Underlining Links Cause SE Problems?

Hiding underlines in links - is it a no no

[chamade]

Hi,

Not sure if this should be in the google forum or CSS forum so if someone deems it better in the other please move it.

I have a site that has white text on a dark blue background. Within paragraphs of descriptions I have links off to other pages/sites.

Because the default underlining of the links the paragraph looks hard to read, so I have removed the underlinings with a CSS file. Now the paragraph is much easier to read (by a human) and anyone pointing a mouse at the link text sees it is a link and can click if desired.

The question is - is this a possible "hidden link" that the Google algo will penalize or not?

The words are not hidden or small sized or anything - just the underline on the link.

Any advise appreciated.

[tigger]

it's what I do and so far I've not had any problems

[John_Caius]

AFAIK there's no evidence yet of googlebot reading an external CSS stylesheet - in which case it won't know whether the links are underlined or not if the {text-decoration: none} is in the external stylesheet.

[WebManager]

If the viewer can see it on the screen - it's not a hidden link! No worries.

[ncsuk]

None of my links are underlined accross 4 sites and they are all okay.

[Nick_W]

Absolutely, thanks for stepping in guys!

If google and users can both see your links, even if they don't look like links, all is well, no problem and NO PANIC ;)

Nick