# Every link on eBay is underlined?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/every-link-on-ebay-is-underlined/256106
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [July 21, 2004, 1:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/every-link-on-ebay-is-underlined/256106 "2004-07-21T01:15:24Z")
**Posts on this page:** 6
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Hail\_Ants](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hail_Ants)
#### Post date: [July 21, 2004, 1:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/every-link-on-ebay-is-underlined/256106/1 "2004-07-21T01:15:24Z")
Before I complain to them about it I figured I’d ask if everyone else is getting this. I know how to set underlined links in IE (always, hover, never etc.) so its not my local settings.
Boy is it annoying looking (unless you already had IE set to always that is). Any idea why they’ve done this?
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### Author:  [@gotpasswords](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gotpasswords)
#### Post date: [July 21, 2004, 3:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/every-link-on-ebay-is-underlined/256106/2 "2004-07-21T15:54:42Z")
Pretty much every link here is underlined as well, so I don’t quite understand your question, and how it applies specifically to eBay.
Over the past 10 or so years, underline has been used as a standard to indicate “I’m a link”
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### Author:  [@Just\_Ed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Just_Ed)
#### Post date: [July 21, 2004, 11:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/every-link-on-ebay-is-underlined/256106/3 "2004-07-21T23:46:42Z")
> [@gotpasswords](#):
>
> Over the past 10 or so years, underline has been used as a standard to indicate “I’m a link”
True, but unless the site itself has coded its links specifically to underline, the browser will underline or not according to the preferences the user has set in the browser itself, as **Hail Ants** mentioned (always, hover, never for IE).
For what it’s worth, every link on eBay appears to be coded to always underline, regardless of browser preferences (very annoying, if you ask me). Oh - and I’m using Mozilla Firefox 0.9.2, set _not_ to underline links.
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### Author:  [@Turek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Turek)
#### Post date: [July 21, 2004, 11:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/every-link-on-ebay-is-underlined/256106/4 "2004-07-21T23:47:28Z")
I concur, **Hail Ants**. It seemed to have changed a few days ago. I hate underlined links and have them turned off on every browser I use, and there they are on eBay.
You can cause links to be underlined even if they’re turned off in a browser by defining a style. Someone musta edited their style sheets.
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### Author:  [@SmackFu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SmackFu)
#### Post date: [July 22, 2004, 12:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/every-link-on-ebay-is-underlined/256106/5 "2004-07-22T00:37:39Z")
Here’s the bit from the [stylesheet](http://include.ebaystatic.com/aw/pics/css/ebay-ns.css):
```auto
a:active{color:#0000CC;text-decoration:underline;}
a:link{color:#0000CC;text-decoration:underline;}
a:visited{color:#990099;text-decoration:underline;}
```
As suspected, they are explicitly turning on the underlines on the hyperlinks.
In theory, you should be able to override that using a personal stylesheet in Firefox. I don’t know the details though.
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### Author:  [@Hail\_Ants](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hail_Ants)
#### Post date: [August 10, 2004, 12:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/every-link-on-ebay-is-underlined/256106/6 "2004-08-10T00:00:28Z")
**Well it** looks **like they** finally came **to their senses** and turned **underlined links off** (thank God!)
Amazing how much easier non-underlined is on the eyes…