Is there any reason why a link within an <area> tag would not be counted as correct backlink?

[MiroAsh]

Is there any reason why a link within an <area> tag would not be counted as correct backlink? In this example there is no <a> tag, so will this still be considered a link?</a>

[Highland]

I don't see any reason why not. An area tag with an href element should show up as a link to Google and I've not seen anyone state to the contrary.

This article talks about it some. Since it doesn't explicitly state that area tags aren't valid links I think it's safe to assume they work just fine for SEO.

http://www.pitstopmedia.com/sem/area-tag-seo

[MiroAsh]

Thanks Highland I will take a look