How many links are in this sentence?

I'm in the process of adding more tips to the guide, but we interrupt that process to bring you an important public service announcement.

You know that thing people do, where they write a normal sentence and then pick out a bunch of words in it and make them into different links?

And you know when their blog doesn't underline links in posts until you mouse over them, so as a reader, you have to start mouse-ing over each word and see where the underlining shows up?

Here's an example, from the post Aspiring Skinny Brides, Please Read on the blog Jump Off A Bridge. The last line of the post is this, and I've bolded the part that's linked. (On the blog, it's not bold, it's just red - within purple text, which is an issue for another day.)

I say you should buy another dress! But if you must insist on losing the weight, go read this to get yourself on a better track.

How many links would you say are in that bold section? There are actually three:

• read this
• to get yourself
• on a better track

I would never have known, except that I'm strange and I spend a lot of time mousing over stuff like this when I suspect an accessibility problem.

The other problem with adjacent links like this is that people with disabilities using screen readers to listen to your blog will probably hear the links all mushed together. If they wanted to follow one of the links, they might not be able to. You need to separate your links with either non-linked words or punctuation that's outside the link to create a pause.

Linking like this is one form of mystery meat linkification, which makes it harder for all of your users to figure out what a link is and whether they want to follow it.

So next time you're creating a link, take an extra minute to be a tad more descriptive about what you're linking to - and give your links some room to breathe!