Brooke Jenkins | SF.gov

Building permits | SF.gov

Services | SF.gov

Manohar Raju | SF.gov

Get a birth certificate for someone over 3 | SF.gov

First time visit: View without clicking anything

SF.gov

SF.gov feedback | SF.gov

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

City of San Francisco

Title / URL	Issues
Brooke Jenkins \| SF.govwww.sf.gov/profile--brooke-jenkins	3
Building permits \| SF.govwww.sf.gov/topics--building-permits	3
Services \| SF.govwww.sf.gov/services	3
Manohar Raju \| SF.govwww.sf.gov/manohar-raju	3
Get a birth certificate for someone over 3 \| SF.govwww.sf.gov/get-birth-certificate-someone-over-3	3
First time visit: View without clicking anythingwww.sf.gov/	3
SF.govwww.sf.gov/zh-hant	3
SF.govwww.sf.gov/vi-vn	3
SF.govwww.sf.gov/es	3
SF.gov feedback \| SF.govwww.sf.gov/feedback?referrer=%2F	3

Combine adjacent links with the same destination

City of San Francisco

Where this issue has occurred