title: Is there a reason to use a instead of a:link or a:visited in my stylesheet?
body: <p>Can anyone tell me if there's any reason to use <code>a {}</code> instead of (or adjacent to) <code>a:link, a:visited {}</code> in my stylesheet?  I've had inconsistent results testing this across browsers, sites, etc, so I've never come up with a satisfactory answer.  I was not able to find an answer on The Google, either.</p>
  
  <p>This is of course assuming there would <strong>never</strong> be a reason to use an <code>&lt;a&gt;</code> tag without an <code>href</code> value. Maybe that's a mistaken assumption.</p>
  
  <p>** <strong>EDIT</strong> **</p>
  
  <p>I know what these selectors <em>do</em>. I'm looking for reasons why I would use <code>a</code> instead of <code>a:link</code> or <code>a:visited</code>, since <code>a</code> always has an <code>href</code> attribute. But as Chris Blake and Ryan P said in the answers, there is also <code>&lt;a name="top"&gt;</code> and javascript usage, neither of which would need the <code>href</code> attribute.</p>