20 CSS Link Hover Effect Designs
Reveal Sweep
A thin gradient line sweeps across the link from left to right on hover, then settles as a permanent underline. Two-stage motion in a single hover.
Reveal Sweep the 9th 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-sweep">Read the article</a>
.cle-sweep {
position: relative;
display: inline-block;
color: #f0eeff;
font:
600 16px/1.4 system-ui,
sans-serif;
text-decoration: none;
padding-bottom: 6px;
overflow: hidden;
}
/* Permanent underline that draws in from the left */
.cle-sweep::before {
content: "";
position: absolute;
left: 0;
bottom: 0;
width: 100%;
height: 1.5px;
background: #7c6cff;
transform: scaleX(0);
transform-origin: left center;
transition: transform 0.5s cubic-bezier(0.65, 0, 0.35, 1);
}
.cle-sweep:hover::before,
.cle-sweep:focus-visible::before {
transform: scaleX(1);
}
/* Bright gradient highlight that sweeps across once on hover */
.cle-sweep::after {
content: "";
position: absolute;
left: 0;
bottom: 0;
width: 60%;
height: 1.5px;
background: linear-gradient(90deg, transparent, #fff 50%, transparent);
transform: translateX(-100%);
opacity: 0;
transition:
transform 0.7s cubic-bezier(0.65, 0, 0.35, 1),
opacity 0.2s;
pointer-events: none;
}
.cle-sweep:hover::after,
.cle-sweep:focus-visible::after {
transform: translateX(280%);
opacity: 1;
}