tags inside <a>tags - is this bad?</a>

[mjk26]

Hi,

I'm currently redesigning my website, and in many places, I've now decided to make links a little bit more obvious for the user, using tags within a <a>tag in order to make the entire block of text clickable.  I was just wondering if this could have a negative impact in the search engines.  My gut feeling is no, since I'm actually improving usability, but I guess it could have an impact on how Google looks at the anchor text?  An example of the HTML is as follows: </a>

<a></a>

<a></a>

[Cristal Night Club Hotels

<address>1045 5th Street
Miami Beach, FL33139</address>

6.4 miles from Miami Dade County Auditorium](http://localhost:8080/frontend/venue-hotels/cristal-night-club-hotels/301022 "Hotels near Cristal Night Club")

Thanks for your thoughts and comments,

Best wishes

Mike

[CMC-SD]

Totally agree. Add a class to those <a>s and style that.</a>

[john4math]

<spans>are all over the web, and used in lots of different situations.  It shouldn't adverse affect your rankings.</spans>

That being said, going over your site and adding s into all your <a>s doesn't sound like fun... and after all you may want to change it again down the road.  You can't accomplish something similar with CSS?  I think styling your</a> <a>s with "display:block;" should accomplish the same thing as adding this to all your</a> <a>s?</a>

[donford]

Hi Mike,

In general there is not many negatives to using html / css styling. The exceptions being when you are purposely hiding text, from users. Example: white text on a white background.

Specifically in the case you asked about, I have never heard, seen, or otherwise caught a whiff of this being a bad thing, rather it is more of an accepted reality.

Hope that helps,

Don

[Andy.Drinkwater]

I have never seen an instance where a span tag has had any negative effect on SEO as it is just a standard HTML element.

OK, perhaps some favour a style sheet, but raw code on the page is still more than acceptable.

Andy