Link Text Demo - Information For This Demo

Quick tip: Sometimes you may need to rewrite a sentence, but you can always find a way to avoid using "click here" as your link text.

How to test this issue

Test tips for this issue:

  • Test technique: Read the page.
    • Read the link text for all links on the page.
    • Verify that all link text describes the purpose of the link, or the purpose of the link can be determined in context of the surrounding text.
  • Make a Judgment call:
    • Examples of link text that does not provide sufficient context include click here, read more, download now, and so on.
    • Examples of context that is acceptable:
      • The context is provided by the link text itself. (This is the preferred solution.)
      • The context is provided within the same sentence or list item.
      • The context is provided within the same paragraph, as long as context is not ambiguous in any way.
      • The context is provided within the same table cell, or provide by the table headers for that cell.
      • The context is provided by the preceding page heading.
      • The context is provided by an aria-label, aria-labelledby, or aria-describedby attribute for the link.

Note: WAVE will alert you to some types of suspicious link text, such as click here or read more links. However, you must make a judgement call to decide if it is an error.

You can also use JAWS to listen to the text to see if it makes sense in context.

While WCAG allows the other types of acceptable context listed above, the best practice and the TWC standard is to provide context in the link text itself, unless there is a compelling reason to design the links otherwise.

Failing WCAG Guidelines and Test Tips

For this demo, the following WCAG guidelines fail:

  • 2.4.4: Link Purpose (in context)
  • 2.4.9: Link Purpose (Link only) - AAA