Link Purpose (Link Only)
Link text has to identify where the link goes, on its own, with no help from the sentence around it. The Level A rule lets the surrounding text carry that job. Two things soften this at AAA. Links whose purpose nobody could work out from the page, disabled or not, are excepted. And what the criterion asks for is that a mechanism exists, so a site may keep short link text by default and offer a control that expands it.
Why it matters
W3C's first-listed reason is one nobody expects. Somebody with a motion impairment pays for every keystroke, and a link list saying where each link goes lets them skip the pages they do not want instead of visiting and coming back. Then there is the screen reader link list, which strips the surrounding sentence away entirely, so read more appearing 11 times on a page means nothing 11 times over. And a reader who follows a link they misread has to find their place again when they return.
Who this rule protects
People with motion impairments, people with cognitive limitations, and screen reader users pulling up a list of a page's links are the three groups W3C names.
How to check it yourself
- Pull up the link list in a screen reader and read it with the page hidden.
- Count how many entries you could act on without more context.
- Look for identical text pointing at different destinations, which is really a Level AA matter under criterion 3.2.4 but shows up here first.
- Check every image that is the only content in a link, because one with no accessible name fails this and two Level A rules at once.
Failures we see most often
- Read more, click here and learn more repeat across the same page with no way to expand them.
- An image is the whole of a link and carries no accessible name.
- A link is left vague when the page around it does say where it goes, which the exception does not cover. Whatever context exists has to make it into the link text.
Who this one is for
Read from this rule's own note above, so the grouping and the note cannot disagree.
- Blind and screen reader userspeople who cannot see the screen
- Motor and keyboard-onlypeople who cannot use a mouse, or cannot use one precisely
- Cognitive and learningpeople for whom the difficulty is understanding, remembering, or staying with it
How this one is tested
We list 5 ACT rules against 2.4.9. Each one defines exactly what a checker looks at, which is how automated tools decide what to flag. Each one also checks a slice, so passing every rule here is not the same as meeting the criterion, and a rule can be proposed rather than approved or need a person to finish it. The note beside each says which.
- Link has non-empty accessible nameA tool can check this
- Link in context is descriptiveA tool can check this
- Links with identical accessible names and same context serve equivalent purposeA tool finds candidates, you decide
- Link is descriptiveA tool can check this
- Links with identical accessible names have equivalent purposeA tool can check this
How to fix it
- Write the destination into the link text. The name of the document or the application is enough, and it does not have to be a sentence.
- Where the design demands short visible text, extend it with words hidden visually and read aloud.
- Or keep the short form and offer a control near the top of the page that switches every link to its long form, which is the mechanism route W3C documents.
- Make the link text and the destination's page title agree, so the reader who follows it lands somewhere they recognize.
Step-by-step fix guides (15)
- H30: Write link text that says where the link goes
- H2: Combine adjacent image and text links into one
- H24: Add alt text to every image map area
- H33: Supplement vague link text with a title attribute
- ARIA8: Fix vague link text with aria-label
- C7: Add hidden text to clarify short links
- SCR24: Open new windows only when the user asks
- SCR30: Let users swap in self-explanatory link text
- G91: Write link text that states its purpose
- G189: Offer a switch to self-describing link text
- G201: Warn users before opening a new windowAdvisory
- PDF11: Tag PDF links so they are announced
- PDF13: Replace raw URLs in PDFs with descriptive text
Passes vs. fails
Passes
One reads 'Read more about the Title II deadlines', and the other 10 are just as specific.
Fails
A news index runs 11 links that all read 'Read more'.
In audits and lawsuits
This is Level AAA and worth adopting whether or not AAA is the goal, because it costs nothing at writing time. Two details are worth carrying into an audit. Click here is only a documented failure where no mechanism exists to change the link text, which is the qualifier the failure technique itself carries. And an image that is the only thing inside a link, with no accessible name, fails this criterion together with two Level A ones, so that is the version that shows up in a paid audit.