Never know any but some designers tend to use a:link while others like to use just a. Is there any substantial difference between them?
YES. a means all links. Any properties you stick on a, assuming you don't have any other previous conflicting values, will be inherited by all the other a's: a:hover, a:link, a:focus, a:active, a:visited, unless those have values overriding a. a:link will not bring any inherited values to a:hover, active, etc... a { text-decoration: none; } Now all a's will have no text decoration until you override: a:hover { text-decoration: underline; } Meanwhile, if all you ever had was a:link {text-decoration: none;} then as soon as that link is clicked, hovered over, or was visited, the underline (a browser default) comes back.