Level A · WCAG 2.0
2.4.4 Link Purpose (In Context)
The purpose of a link can be worked out from the link text, or from the sentence it sits in.
Partly automated Some failures are detectable, others need judgement.
How it fails in practice
A page of twelve “Read more” links, which a screen-reader user hears as a list of twelve identical entries with no way to tell them apart.
How to fix it
Write the destination into the link: “Read the BFSG guide”. If the design requires short text, extend it with visually hidden text rather than an aria-label that contradicts what is on screen.
At a glance
- Level
- Level A — the minimum. Failing one of these usually makes something impossible rather than merely hard.
- Principle
- Operable
- Guideline
- 2.4 Navigable
- Added in
- WCAG 2.0
- EN 301 549
- 9.2.4.4
- Automated check
- Partly automated
How to test it by hand
- Open the list of links — in a screen reader, or with a links bookmarklet — and read it without the page around it.
- Each link should make sense on its own, or together with its sentence, paragraph, list item or table cell. Several “Read more” links pointing to different places are the tell-tale sign.
- Check links that are only an image or an icon: the text alternative has to name where the link goes.
- Where the visible text has to stay short, check that the missing words are inside the link as visually hidden text — an
aria-labelthat says something different from the screen breaks voice control.
In code
<article class="product-card">
<img src="shirt.jpg" alt="">
<a href="/p/4417">Read more</a>
</article><article class="product-card">
<img src="shirt.jpg" alt="">
<a href="/p/4417">Read more<span class="visually-hidden">
about the linen shirt</span></a>
</article>Partly automated
How far an automated check gets
A tool finds some failures here and cannot see the rest. A clean automated result means the checks that exist found nothing — not that the criterion is met. This is the gap that makes a green scan look like an accessible site, and it is where the keyboard agent, the agents still in development and a human reviewer do the remaining work.
Rules that check this criterion
area-altActive <area> elements must have alternative textlink-nameLink without discernible text
The rule ids are axe-core’s (version 4.14.0), the open-source engine our scan runs, and our keyboard agent’s — the names a report or a CI log will show. An underlined id has a page of its own here.
Where it matters most
The guides that list it among the criteria to check first.
Related criteria
Other criteria under the same guideline.
Further reading
-
link-name
The axe rule link-name flags links with no accessible name – icon links, image links without alt, empty anchors. The fix, with code example.
Find out which criteria your site fails
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