strike element

<strike> draws a line through its text. It is presentational markup from before CSS, and it still turns up for crossed-out prices, corrected dates and “done” items in old pages and pasted rich text.

Why avoid

It is obsolete, and the HTML Standard names the replacement: “Use del instead if the element is marking an edit, otherwise use s instead.”

The look was never the problem. The spec’s user-agent stylesheet treats all three elements the same: del, s, strike { text-decoration: line-through; }. The difference is meaning. The s element “represents contents that are no longer accurate or no longer relevant”, and del “represents a removal from the document”. strike means neither. The DOM section maps it to plain HTMLElement, with no semantics of its own.

That difference reaches people who can’t see the line. The HTML Accessibility API Mappings map both del and s to the WAI-ARIA deletion role, so browsers can tell assistive technology that the text is struck. There is no mapping for strike at all. It is exposed as ordinary text, and nothing tells assistive technology that the old price or the cancelled date is struck out.

Use instead

Pick by meaning. Use s for something that is no longer accurate or relevant:

<p>Price: <s>CHF 49</s> CHF 29</p>

Use del for text removed from the document, optionally with ins for what replaced it and datetime for when:

<p>Meeting on <del datetime="2026-09-14">Tuesday</del> <ins>Thursday</ins>.</p>

The spec is explicit that s “is not appropriate when indicating document edits”. If the line is purely decorative and means nothing, use CSS text-decoration: line-through on a <span>.

Detectability

Fully detectable by tag name. There is no autofix: fixes can only remove markup, not rename it, and choosing between del and s depends on what the text means.

Resources

• HTML Standard — Non-conforming features — strike is obsolete; use del for edits, otherwise s.
• HTML Standard — The s element — contents that are no longer accurate or relevant; not for document edits.
• HTML Standard — The del element — a removal from the document.
• HTML Standard — Rendering: phrasing content — del, s, strike { text-decoration: line-through; }, the same look for all three.
• W3C — HTML Accessibility API Mappings — s and del map to the ARIA deletion role; strike has no mapping.