Skip to content
    Moz logo Menu open Menu close
    • Products
      • Moz Pro
      • Moz Pro Home
      • Moz Local
      • Moz Local Home
      • STAT
      • Moz API
      • Moz API Home
      • Compare SEO Products
      • Moz Data
    • Free SEO Tools
      • Domain Analysis
      • Keyword Explorer
      • Link Explorer
      • Competitive Research
      • MozBar
      • More Free SEO Tools
    • Learn SEO
      • Beginner's Guide to SEO
      • SEO Learning Center
      • Moz Academy
      • MozCon
      • Webinars, Whitepapers, & Guides
    • Blog
    • Why Moz
      • Digital Marketers
      • Agency Solutions
      • Enterprise Solutions
      • Small Business Solutions
      • The Moz Story
      • New Releases
    • Log in
    • Log out
    • Products
      • Moz Pro

        Your all-in-one suite of SEO essentials.

      • Moz Local

        Raise your local SEO visibility with complete local SEO management.

      • STAT

        SERP tracking and analytics for enterprise SEO experts.

      • Moz API

        Power your SEO with our index of over 44 trillion links.

      • Compare SEO Products

        See which Moz SEO solution best meets your business needs.

      • Moz Data

        Power your SEO strategy & AI models with custom data solutions.

      Track AI Overviews in Keyword Research
      Moz Pro

      Track AI Overviews in Keyword Research

      Try it free!
    • Free SEO Tools
      • Domain Analysis

        Get top competitive SEO metrics like DA, top pages and more.

      • Keyword Explorer

        Find traffic-driving keywords with our 1.25 billion+ keyword index.

      • Link Explorer

        Explore over 40 trillion links for powerful backlink data.

      • Competitive Research

        Uncover valuable insights on your organic search competitors.

      • MozBar

        See top SEO metrics for free as you browse the web.

      • More Free SEO Tools

        Explore all the free SEO tools Moz has to offer.

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic
      Moz Pro

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic

      Learn more
    • Learn SEO
      • Beginner's Guide to SEO

        The #1 most popular introduction to SEO, trusted by millions.

      • SEO Learning Center

        Broaden your knowledge with SEO resources for all skill levels.

      • On-Demand Webinars

        Learn modern SEO best practices from industry experts.

      • How-To Guides

        Step-by-step guides to search success from the authority on SEO.

      • Moz Academy

        Upskill and get certified with on-demand courses & certifications.

      • MozCon

        Save on Early Bird tickets and join us in London or New York City

      Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints
      Moz API

      Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints

      Find your plan
    • Blog
    • Why Moz
      • Digital Marketers

        Simplify SEO tasks to save time and grow your traffic.

      • Small Business Solutions

        Uncover insights to make smarter marketing decisions in less time.

      • Agency Solutions

        Earn & keep valuable clients with unparalleled data & insights.

      • Enterprise Solutions

        Gain a competitive edge in the ever-changing world of search.

      • The Moz Story

        Moz was the first & remains the most trusted SEO company.

      • New Releases

        Get the scoop on the latest and greatest from Moz.

      Surface actionable competitive intel
      New Feature

      Surface actionable competitive intel

      Learn More
    • Log in
      • Moz Pro
      • Moz Local
      • Moz Local Dashboard
      • Moz API
      • Moz API Dashboard
      • Moz Academy
    • Avatar
      • Moz Home
      • Notifications
      • Account & Billing
      • Manage Users
      • Community Profile
      • My Q&A
      • My Videos
      • Log Out

    The Moz Q&A Forum

    • Forum
    • Questions
    • Users
    • Ask the Community

    Welcome to the Q&A Forum

    Browse the forum for helpful insights and fresh discussions about all things SEO.

    1. Home
    2. SEO Tactics
    3. Technical SEO
    4. Is using a Href in Div OK?

    Moz Q&A is closed.

    After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.

    Is using a Href in Div OK?

    Technical SEO
    4
    7
    4522
    Loading More Posts
    • Oldest to Newest
    • Newest to Oldest
    • Most Votes
    Reply
    • Reply as question
    Log in to reply
    This topic has been deleted. Only users with question management privileges can see it.
    • James77
      James77 last edited by

      Hi,

      I was just wondering what your thoughts are on using a Href in a Div, which contains anchor text. We currently use the Href on the div, as opposed to just the anchor text as I want the whole div to be clickable as opposed to just the anchor text.

      So currently I have:

      Keword 1
      Keyword 2

      Is this perfectly fine to do it like this as opposed to using <a tags="" ???<br="">I suppose there are various alternatives - if you must use the</a><a tag="" like:<="" p=""></a>

      <a tag="" like:<="" p=""></a>

      Keword 1
      Keyword 2

      However I would assume a search engine is smart enought to know its the same thing???

      Thanks

      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
      • James77
        James77 @James77 last edited by

        Many thanks - I'm going to have a serious word with my coders!!

        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
        • RyanKent
          RyanKent @James77 last edited by

          As Dave shared, the W3C is the official organization for determining the validity of code. Generally speaking, you want your code to be valid.

          If you want an area to be a click-able link try Maximise's suggestion.

          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
          • James77
            James77 @RyanKent last edited by

            Jesus - Thanks.

            So your telling me that its totally invalud to:
            1/. Wrap a href tag around a div tag.

            2/. Put a href tag as an atribute on a div tag.

            If that is the case I'm going to have so serious words with my coders!!

            RyanKent James77 2 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 0
            • blackballonline
              blackballonline last edited by

              Any time I have a question about valid HTML I go to the Source. W3C has an invaluable tool for HTML . Becoming familiar with this will help you always create clean code.

              1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 2
              • Maximise
                Maximise last edited by

                I would try and stay clear of doing this to be honest. It won't validate, older browsers may have problems with it and I'm not sure how search engines would treat it (they may not follow it). There are better ways to do it.

                If you set your anchor tag to 'display:block' you can then set the height and width too. This way the whole div would be the link, not just the text.

                1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 3
                • RyanKent
                  RyanKent last edited by

                  Neither option is valid HTML. Browser behavior and crawler behavior would be unpredictable.

                  The code would be something like:

                  Keword 1
                    

                  James77 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                  • 1 / 1
                  • First post
                    Last post

                  Got a burning SEO question?

                  Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.


                  Start my free trial


                  Browse Questions

                  Explore more categories

                  • Moz Tools

                    Chat with the community about the Moz tools.

                  • SEO Tactics

                    Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers

                  • Community

                    Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!

                  • Digital Marketing

                    Chat about tactics outside of SEO

                  • Research & Trends

                    Dive into research and trends in the search industry.

                  • Support

                    Connect on product support and feature requests.

                  • See all categories

                  Related Questions

                  • williamhuynh

                    Good to use disallow or noindex for these?

                    technical seo noindex disallow

                    Hello everyone, I am reaching out to seek your expert advice on a few technical SEO aspects related to my website. I highly value your expertise in this field and would greatly appreciate your insights.
                    Below are the specific areas I would like to discuss: a. Double and Triple filter pages: I have identified certain URLs on my website that have a canonical tag pointing to the main /quick-ship page. These URLs are as follows: https://www.interiorsecrets.com.au/collections/lounge-chairs/quick-ship+black
                    https://www.interiorsecrets.com.au/collections/lounge-chairs/quick-ship+black+fabric Considering the need to optimize my crawl budget, I would like to seek your advice on whether it would be advisable to disallow or noindex these pages. My understanding is that by disallowing or noindexing these URLs, search engines can avoid wasting resources on crawling and indexing duplicate or filtered content. I would greatly appreciate your guidance on this matter. b. Page URLs with parameters: I have noticed that some of my page URLs include parameters such as ?variant and ?limit. Although these URLs already have canonical tags in place, I would like to understand whether it is still recommended to disallow or noindex them to further conserve crawl budget. My understanding is that by doing so, search engines can prevent the unnecessary expenditure of resources on indexing redundant variations of the same content. I would be grateful for your expert opinion on this matter. Additionally, I would be delighted if you could provide any suggestions regarding internal linking strategies tailored to my website's structure and content. Any insights or recommendations you can offer would be highly valuable to me. Thank you in advance for your time and expertise in addressing these concerns. I genuinely appreciate your assistance. If you require any further information or clarification, please let me know. I look forward to hearing from you. Cheers!

                    Technical SEO | | williamhuynh
                    0
                  • Easigrass

                    Should I use a canonical URL for images uploaded to a blog post in Wordpress?

                    Hi, I have a wordpress website that has articles/news posts witch contain imagery. I've noticed that in the Media Library, when you upload an image to a blog post it generates a new permalink ...article-name/article-image-01.jpg I have Yoast SEO plugin and have the option to set a canonical URL for this image. Should I point it back to the actual article? Thanks for any helpers with this.

                    Technical SEO | | Easigrass
                    0
                  • DebashishB

                    How to track my actual traffic source using Google Analytics which are now showing as referral traffic?

                    Hi Mozzers, I went through many Q&As in the community this morning. I found a solution where I could just remove the referral site in analytics>admin>property>tracking info>referral exclusion list. So I removed paypal.com which was the main referral traffic. I thought the problem is solved. Later today I got another order, now the referral traffic is from eway.com, now what? Yes I know I will add this to the exclusion list but there will be many more referral sites. My main concern is I am not able to track the actual traffic source. How do I do that? 1. Do I need to use google url tracking for all my pages?
                    2. Do I need to add tracking code in each page of the site?
                    3. Is there a way to track the actual source of this traffic, now that the transaction is already made but reflects as referral traffic in Google Analytics? jZjTN

                    Technical SEO | | DebashishB
                    0
                  • capmartin85

                    When you change your domain, How much time do I have to wait for google to return the traffic used to have?

                    Hello. 20 days ago, I changed my domain from uclasificados.net to uclasificados.com doing redirect 301 to all urls, and I started to loose rankings since that moment. I was wondering if changing it back could be the solutions, but some experts recommend me not to do that, because it could be worse. Right now I receave almost 50% of traffic I used to receave before, and I have done a lot of linkbuilding strategies to recover but nothing have worked until now. Even though I notified google of this change and I send again my new sitemap, I don't see that have improve my situation in any aspects, and I still see in webmastertools search stats from my last website (the website who used to be uclasificados.com before the change). What should I do to recover faster?

                    Technical SEO | | capmartin85
                    0
                  • JDatSB

                    Does using data-href="" work more effectively than href="" rel="nofollow"?

                    I've been looking at some bigger enterprise sites and noticed some of them used HTML like this: <a <="" span="">data-href="http://www.otherodmain.com/" class="nofollow" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"></a> <a <="" span="">Instead of a regular href="" Does using data-href and some javascript help with shaping internal links, rather than just using a strict nofollow?</a>

                    Technical SEO | | JDatSB
                    0
                  • koamit

                    What should be use 301 or 302 redirection for 404 pages

                    Please suggest which redirection we should use for 404 pages- 301 or 302. If you can elaborate it with reason then it will be highly appreciated.

                    Technical SEO | | koamit
                    0
                  • ChrisRoberts-MTI

                    NoIndex/NoFollow pages showing up when doing a Google search using "Site:" parameter

                    We recently launched a beta version of our new website in a subdomain of our existing site. The existing site is www.fonts.com with the beta living at new.fonts.com. We do not want Google to crawl the new site until it's out of beta so we have added the following on all pages: However, one of our team members noticed that google is displaying results from new.fonts.com when doing an "site:new.fonts.com" search (see attached screenshot). Is it possible that Google is indexing the content despite the noindex, nofollow tags? We have double checked the syntax and it seems correct except the trailing "/". I know Google still crawls noindexed pages, however, the fact that they're showing up in search results using the site search syntax is unsettling. Any thoughts would be appreciated! DyWRP.png

                    Technical SEO | | ChrisRoberts-MTI
                    0
                  • FastLearner

                    Does google use the wayback machine to determine the age of a site?

                    I have a site that I had removed from the wayback machine because I didn't want old versions to show. However I noticed that in many seo tools the site now always shows a domain age of zero instead of 6 years ago when I registered it. My question is what do the actual search engines use to determine age when they factor it into the ranking algorithm? By having it removed from the wayback machine, does that make the search engines think the site is brand new? Thanks

                    Technical SEO | | FastLearner
                    0

                  Get started with Moz Pro!

                  Unlock the power of advanced SEO tools and data-driven insights.

                  Start my free trial
                  Products
                  • Moz Pro
                  • Moz Local
                  • Moz API
                  • Moz Data
                  • STAT
                  • Product Updates
                  Moz Solutions
                  • SMB Solutions
                  • Agency Solutions
                  • Enterprise Solutions
                  • Digital Marketers
                  Free SEO Tools
                  • Domain Authority Checker
                  • Link Explorer
                  • Keyword Explorer
                  • Competitive Research
                  • Brand Authority Checker
                  • Local Citation Checker
                  • MozBar Extension
                  • MozCast
                  Resources
                  • Blog
                  • SEO Learning Center
                  • Help Hub
                  • Beginner's Guide to SEO
                  • How-to Guides
                  • Moz Academy
                  • API Docs
                  About Moz
                  • About
                  • Team
                  • Careers
                  • Contact
                  Why Moz
                  • Case Studies
                  • Testimonials
                  Get Involved
                  • Become an Affiliate
                  • MozCon
                  • Webinars
                  • Practical Marketer Series
                  • MozPod
                  Connect with us

                  Contact the Help team

                  Join our newsletter
                  Moz logo
                  © 2021 - 2025 SEOMoz, Inc., a Ziff Davis company. All rights reserved. Moz is a registered trademark of SEOMoz, Inc.
                  • Accessibility
                  • Terms of Use
                  • Privacy

                  Looks like your connection to Moz was lost, please wait while we try to reconnect.