Thanks for looking into this. Have you made sense of the discussion in #598? This seems like it's the same fix. Does it patch around the Chrome bug somehow?

The main difference is the <a> doesn't surround the text in this PR so it wont change the color of the text.

I have basically just added this to the bottom of each template:

  {{?(it.links[0] && it.links[0].length)}}
    <a xlink:href="{{=it.links[0]}}">
      <rect width="{{=it.widths[0]}}" height="20" fill="rgba(0,0,0,0)"/>
    </a>
  {{?}}
  {{?(it.links[0] && it.links[0].length || it.links[1] && it.links[1].length)}}
    <a xlink:href="{{=it.links[1] || it.links[0]}}">
      <rect x="{{=it.widths[0]}}" width="{{=it.widths[1]}}" height="20" fill="rgba(0,0,0,0)"/>
    </a>
  {{?}}

which adds another rect object over top of the text and original rect so it isn't linked to the text,
And once it has been visited will not change the text color.

One thing i have just realised:
For some reason you cannot overwrite the links on badges which already include a link (for social style)

Examples:

https://shields-staging-pr-1172.herokuapp.com/github/forks/badges/shields.svg?style=social&label=Fork&link=//google.com
will link to https://github.com still.

https://shields-staging-pr-1172.herokuapp.com/github/forks/badges/shields.svg?style=flat&label=Fork&link=//google.com
will link to https://google.com as expected (although the second half should still link to github as it has been set)

https://shields-staging-pr-1172.herokuapp.com/github/forks/badges/shields.svg?style=flat&label=Fork
will not have any links, even though it should have the github links.

https://shields-staging-pr-1172.herokuapp.com/badge/test-badge-blue.svg?style=social&label=Fork&link=//google.com
This social badge will include the user specified link because it wasn't set by server.js

Not sure why this is happening,
The templates are using the exact same variable.

Ah, right, the problem is in the server code, not the templates.

After this PR, can we turn on the links everywhere instead of limiting them to the social badges?

When we do that, we should let the user-provided link(s) override the default ones in code. Basically we should handle it the same as the label. To see what I mean, take a look at the way we use getLabel aka makeLabel.

I feel like this is good to merge! Do you agree?

Also, I wanted to ask: would you be interested in joining as a maintainer? You've shown a real interest in fixing some long-standing issues with the badge templates, developing powerful and flexible new badges, and fixing bugs here and there. It would be great to have your help reviewing contributions and contributing in whatever way you'd like. Would appreciate having you on board!

Just wanted to follow up! Do you think this is ready to merge?

Are you interested in being a maintainer? 😃

Yeah should be ready to merge,
Think it would be best to update the social link handling/overrides in a separate PR just to keep things tidier.

Thanks for the offer,
I would love to join the team as a maintainer! 😄