This is not about a site's main navigation. It's about additional images and links on a page.

If you have a handful of small graphics on the page representing certain features or special deals, and each of those has a regular text link underneath it, should you also make the images themselves links? This would mean there are two links for the same thing, and I'm wondering if this is good, bad or doesn't matter?

I hope that made sense. :blush:

To clarify....

You have a graphic of a woman, with a text link underneath "women's page".

You have a graphic of a man, with a text link underneath "men's page".

You have a graphic of a kid, with a text link underneath "kid's page".

Should you also make the graphics themselves link to the pages? Does it matter?

It depends entirely on the layout, I think. If a user would intuitively see the image as a navigational feature, then it would make sense to link it. If it would naturally appear to be ornamentation and the text link itself is clearly the navigation, then there's no need.

If you can create a single link and wrap it around both elements, this would be best from a usability perspective. Someone using a screen reader will hear a link mentioned twice if you use two <a> elements. If you can wrap both together, then you get the best of both worlds.

There is no penalty for multiple linking from an search engine perspective either, so long as the links are internal. So you're free to go either way with this one :)

Very helpful, and exactly what I needed to know from both perspectives - user and SE.

Thanks for the reply Paul.