Level A

15.7% of home pages have ambiguous link text

2.4.4 Link Purpose (In Context)

In Plain Language

The purpose of every link must be clear from the link text alone, or from the link text combined with its surrounding context. Users should be able to understand where a link will take them before they activate it.

Two common failures: empty links (an image wrapped in a link with no alt text) and vague link text like "click here" or "read more" that is meaningless out of context.

Why It Matters

  • Screen reader users often navigate by pulling up a list of all links on a page -- "click here" repeated five times is useless without surrounding context.
  • Empty links are announced as the raw URL, which can be a long, incomprehensible string of characters.
  • Descriptive link text helps all users scan the page and decide which links to follow.
  • This is the fourth most common accessibility failure, found on 46.3% of home pages.

Examples

Do: Descriptive link text
Don't: Vague 'click here' links
Do: Icon link with aria-label
Don't: Empty link with no text

How to Fix It

  1. Write descriptive link text. The link text should make sense on its own, out of context. Replace "click here" or "read more" with text that describes the destination, such as "view our adult literacy programs."
  2. Give icon links an accessible name. Use aria-label on links that contain only an icon, image, or symbol. For image links, the image's alt text becomes the link's accessible name.
  3. Avoid duplicate link text. If multiple links on the same page say "Learn more", differentiate them with aria-label or by rewriting the visible text to be unique.
  4. Use surrounding context when needed. If the link text alone is not sufficient, the enclosing sentence, paragraph, list item, or table cell can provide additional context -- but standalone descriptive text is always preferred.