Understanding CSS Specificity: How Style Rules Are Applied in Web Development

Staff Reporter

A recent blog post by Ravikant, published by Specbee, provides an in-depth explanation of CSS specificity, a fundamental concept in front-end development that dictates how styles are applied when multiple CSS rules target the same element. Using an analogy of decision-making within a family, the article explains how specificity determines the precedence of CSS rules, ensuring consistent styling. It categorizes selectors into a specificity hierarchy, ranking inline styles as the highest priority, followed by ID selectors, classes, attributes, and pseudo-classes, with elements and pseudo-elements having the lowest priority.

A detailed specificity calculation method assigns numerical weights to selectors, illustrating how styles are applied in cases of conflict. The blog also outlines best practices, advising developers to use classes over IDs, avoid the !important rule, and adopt structured methodologies like BEM for maintainability. By understanding and applying CSS specificity principles, developers can prevent unintended style conflicts and create clean, maintainable stylesheets.

Source Reference

Title

Take full control of your Styles with CSS Specificity

Byline

Ravikant Kumawat

Date of Publication

18 February 2025

Organization

Specbee

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CSS

Web Development

Specbee

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