Leaving the browser with 9x% of the marketshare with nothing?

If you are set on using generated content, perhaps a little hacking for IE?

* html a:visited along with some padding and a background image would do, similar to the method described in the link that Jemaleddin provides (in #1 above) could be added to clean up the stragglers ;-]

I made a version of the mid-sentence version work by using a background image, not specifying block width, and aligning link text to the right. Worked a treat, and fully cross-browser.

I’ll be evangelical about using ticks for added usability wherever possible. But, be wary of using background images on links:
background images security flaw, and more here

Simon: Upon looking at your site again, I’m sure you subconsciously planted this checkmark idea in my head because now that I think about it, I clearly remember seeing the image-based implementation in your sidebar. And so, I do hereby credit thee with a large dose of inspiration!

I am not, however, too worried about the potential security exploit mentioned by others with regards to your site (even though I’m not using background-images anyway). Number one: I’m just not tracking stats like that. And number two: I’m not too sure the proprietor of a site doesn’t have the right to track stuff like that if they wanted to. I can add javascript to my links to track where you’re clicking anyway, so doing it with a background image doesn’t seem any worse… unless I’m missing something.

Also, I will look into providing the hack that Mike P. suggests for IE 6. Since they get their grey visited link color anyway, I didn’t think it totally necessary to offer them full parity in radicalness as well. There’s just something satisfying about keeping subtleties away from IE people…

Regarding readability, your ticks are subtle, and I think they work – it’s just takes a bit of getting used to seeing them mid-sentence. I’m not concerned about the background image security either, but Andy Clarke has definitely highlighted it’s potential misuse in his article.

Doug over at Stopdesign uses genereated content (I believe) on his home page quite nicely. The » that follow his ‘more’ links gets that treatment, and IE loses out there too.

For me my eyes kept getting drawn to them as I’m reading through a sentance, but the brain is good at filtering out what it doesn’t need so after a while I can just skip right past them.

How many simultaneous ways do you need to show that the link has been visited? You could always add the strike-though method as well. ;)

Loving the site and the subjects you post about. Keep up the good work!

I’d like to use the checkmark or heavy check unicode characters, but browser/OS support doesn’t seem very good so far. While Safari/Mozilla/Firefox can all render the radical character correctly, only Safari seems to render the checkmark or heavy check.

a:visited:after {
    content: "\00A0\221A";
}

Will work just fine.

 Jens