20 CSS Link Hover Effect Designs
Dotted Focus Ring
A dotted box outline appears around the link on hover, paired with a blinking trailing caret. Reads as terminal/CLI focus — distinctive without competing with the text.
Dotted Focus Ring the 3rd of 20 designs in the 20 CSS Link Hover Effect Designs collection. The design is implemented in pure CSS — no JavaScript required. Copy the HTML and CSS panels below into your project. Because the demo is pure CSS, it works in any framework or templating engine you happen to use. The design honours prefers-reduced-motion and uses real semantic markup, so it ships accessibility-ready out of the box.
Live preview
The code
<a href="#" class="cle-dot"> <span class="cle-dot-bullet" aria-hidden="true">◉</span> Let's Goooo! <span class="cle-dot-caret" aria-hidden="true">_</span> </a>
.cle-dot {
display: inline-flex;
align-items: center;
gap: 6px;
padding: 4px 8px;
color: #ddff8a;
font:
700 16px/1.2 system-ui,
sans-serif;
text-decoration: underline;
text-decoration-color: #ddff8a;
text-decoration-thickness: 2px;
text-underline-offset: 4px;
border: 1.5px dotted transparent;
border-radius: 3px;
transition: border-color 0.2s;
}
.cle-dot-bullet {
color: #ddff8a;
font-size: 14px;
}
.cle-dot-caret {
opacity: 0;
color: #ddff8a;
font-weight: 700;
transition: opacity 0.2s;
}
.cle-dot:hover,
.cle-dot:focus-visible {
border-color: #ddff8a;
}
.cle-dot:hover .cle-dot-caret,
.cle-dot:focus-visible .cle-dot-caret {
opacity: 1;
animation: cle-dot-blink 0.9s steps(1) infinite;
}
@keyframes cle-dot-blink {
0%,
50% {
opacity: 1;
}
51%,
100% {
opacity: 0;
}
}
@media (prefers-reduced-motion: reduce) {
.cle-dot:hover .cle-dot-caret,
.cle-dot:focus-visible .cle-dot-caret {
animation: none;
opacity: 1;
}
}