html - xhtml self-closing anchor element <a /> allowed?

Question

If I make an anchor element and don't want text within it, because I'm gonna to css-i-fy it with a nice image and a hover-effect... I wonder if it is legal to write <a id="hoverimage" href="google.com" /> validome.org & validator.w3.org say YES ?

BTW: anyone knows an equivalent to alt element for this case?

Answer 1

It is valid in XHTML. It is not HTML-Compatible so likely to break in a document served as text/html. Having a link with no content is bad practise (background images are not content (which is why there is no equivalent to the alt attribute)).