Make a div into a link

Solution 1:

Came here in the hope of finding a better solution that mine, but I don't like any of the ones on offer here. I think some of you have misunderstood the question. The OP wants to make a div full of content behave like a link. One example of this would be facebook ads - if you look, they're actually proper markup.

For me the no-nos are: javascript (shouldn't be needed just for a link, and very bad SEO/accessibility); invalid HTML.

In essence it's this:

Build your panel using normal CSS techniques and valid HTML.
Somewhere in there put a link that you want to be the default link if the user clicks on the panel (you can have other links too).
Inside that link, put an empty span tag (<span></span>, not <span /> - thanks @Campey)
give the panel position:relative

apply the following CSS to the empty span:

{ 
  position:absolute; 
  width:100%;
  height:100%;
  top:0;
  left: 0;

  z-index: 1;

  /* fixes overlap error in IE7/8, 
     make sure you have an empty gif */
  background-image: url('empty.gif');
}

It will now cover the panel, and as it's inside an <A> tag, it's a clickable link

give any other links inside the panel position:relative and a suitable z-index (>1) to bring them in front of the default span link

Solution 2:

You can't make the div a link itself, but you can make an <a> tag act as a block, the same behaviour a <div> has.

a {
    display: block;
}

You can then set the width and height on it.

Solution 3:

This is an ancient question, but I thought I'd answer it since everyone here has some crazy solutions. It's actually very very simple...

An anchor tag works like this -

<a href="whatever you want"> EVERYTHING IN HERE TURNS INTO A LINK </a>

Sooo...

<a href="whatever you want"> <div id="thediv" /> </a>

Although I'm not sure if this is valid. If that's the reasoning behind spoken solutions, then I apologise...

Solution 4:

Requires a little javascript. But, your div would be clickable.

<div onclick="location.href='http://www.example.com';" style="cursor:pointer;"></div>

Solution 5:

This option doesn’t require an empty.gif as in the most upvoted answer:

HTML:

 <div class="feature">
       <a href="http://www.example.com"></a>
 </div>

CSS:

 div.feature {
        position: relative;
    }

    div.feature a {
        position: absolute;
        width: 100%;
        height: 100%;
        top: 0;
        left: 0;
        text-decoration: none; /* No underlines on the link */
        z-index: 10; /* Places the link above everything else in the div */
        background-color: #FFF; /* Fix to make div clickable in IE */
        opacity: 0; /* Fix to make div clickable in IE */
        filter: alpha(opacity=1); /* Fix to make div clickable in IE */
    }

As proposed at http://www.digitalskydesign.com/how-to-make-an-entire-div-a-link-using-css/