Many websites rely on hyperlinks to organize content, but users often scroll past links without clicking them. Traditional link styling—blue for unclicked, purple for clicked—doesn’t account for this middle state, leading to wasted time as users repeatedly see the same uninteresting links. Content-heavy platforms like news aggregators and forums could particularly benefit from a more nuanced way to track engagement.

The Core Idea

One way to improve this could be by introducing a third link state that indicates when a user has seen but not clicked a link. Here's how it might work:

• Unvisited links: Standard styling (e.g., bright blue).
• Clicked links: Traditional "visited" styling (e.g., purple).
• Scrolled-but-not-clicked links: A lighter color (e.g., light gray) to show the link was viewed but ignored.

This would involve tracking whether links appear in the user’s viewport and storing that data locally. The next time the user visits the page, previously scrolled-but-not-clicked links would appear in the lighter color, helping them prioritize new content.

Potential Applications

This subtle change could be useful for:

• Casual browsers who skim content and want to avoid revisiting the same links.
• Platforms with heavy content flow, like forums or news sites, where reducing redundancy could keep users engaged.
• Power users who need to efficiently navigate large sets of links, such as researchers or developers.

Since the system would only store data locally, privacy concerns could be minimized. A lightweight browser extension could serve as a starting point, with potential for platform-native integration if adoption grows.