Our campaigns | Blue Cross

Volunteering at Blue Cross | Volunteer and help pets

Shop online or in-person with Blue Cross

Support our work helping vulnerable pets | Blue Cross

Get help and support for your pet | Blue Cross

Pets for adoption | Blue Cross

Donate to Blue Cross | Help change pets' lives

Educational talks and school resources | Blue Cross

Page not found | Blue Cross

Working at Blue Cross | Work with vulnerable pets

Two adjacent links should not point to the same destination. You almost always want to combine the 
two links.

For example, it is quite common to link an image and text together like this:

```html
<a href="news.html">
    <img src="photo.jpg" alt="" />
</a>
<a href="news.html">
    News
</a>
``` 

These adjacent links should be combined like so:

```html
<a href="news.html">
    <img src="photo.jpg" alt="" />
    News
</a>
``` 

Links to `#` are ignored, as these are nearly always placeholders for JavaScript, e.g.:

```html
<a href="#" onclick="approve()">
    OK
</a>
<a href="#" onclick="reject()">
    Cancel
</a>
```

# Justification

Many users of assistive technology are only able to experience content sequentially - that is, they must
step through each part of the page, one part at a time. Often this is a slow process, potentially 
hampered by a physical impediment.

Stepping through redundant links is time consuming; for example users of a screen reader must 
hear each link read aloud in turn. 

This also simplifies your code. 

# Methodology

1. Find all links (`<a>` tags) on the page.
2. Ignore links pointing to `#`, as these are usually placeholders for JavaScript.
3. Flag links which are (a) separated only by whitespace and (b) which point to the 
   same absolute URL.  

# Learn more

Read about [Technique H2](https://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG20-TECHS/H2) on how to combine
an adjacent image and texts links.

duplicate-adjacent-link

July 2025

June 2025

Blue Cross

	Title / URL	Issues
	Our campaigns \| Blue Crosswww.bluecross.org.uk/our-campaigns	12
	Volunteering at Blue Cross \| Volunteer and help petswww.bluecross.org.uk/volunteer	9
	Shop online or in-person with Blue Crosswww.bluecross.org.uk/shop-online	9
	Support our work helping vulnerable pets \| Blue Crosswww.bluecross.org.uk/support-us	8
	Get help and support for your pet \| Blue Crosswww.bluecross.org.uk/how-we-help	8
	Pets for adoption \| Blue Crosswww.bluecross.org.uk/rehome-pet	7
	Donate to Blue Cross \| Help change pets' liveswww.bluecross.org.uk/donate	6
	Educational talks and school resources \| Blue Crosswww.bluecross.org.uk/education	5
	Page not found \| Blue Crosswww.bluecross.org.uk/invented-url-for-404-page	4
	Working at Blue Cross \| Work with vulnerable petswww.bluecross.org.uk/join-our-team	2

Combine adjacent links with the same destination

Blue Cross

Where this issue has occurred