How to Confuse Your Website Readers with Underlines

Is your website a game of “which link is a real link?” Do readers try to click on what they think is a link only to find that it is actually just underlined text?

If so PLEASE go and fix it now!

Over the past few weeks I have been coming across many sites that have been underlining text for emphasis (here is the real link to the last one).  There are many other tools that you can use to add emphasis to words – bold and italics for example.  When it comes to underlining words that is now an accepted web standard to indicate a hyperlink.

This is a simple thing that you can do to increase the readability of your site, limit the confusion (and link hunt) of your readers and improve the standards compliance of your site.

QUESTION:  What are the things that websites do to confuse you?