Middle East war | Financial Times

Global Economy | Financial Times

Europe | Financial Times

World | Financial Times

Companies | Financial Times

Professional services | Financial Times

Americas | Financial Times

US politics & policy | Financial Times

Financials | Financial Times

Middle East & North Africa | Financial Times

Links must be defined in a specific way to be accessed by screen readers, which are used by 
blind and the partially-sighted.

To work with accessibility technologies, links must contain both machine-readable text, and 
a `href` attribute. If a link is not actually
pointing to a page or part of a page, it should be replaced with another semantic element, such
as a `button`, or the `<a>` tag should have a role of `button`. 

For example:

```html
<a href="/about">About us</a>
```

If the link contains _nothing but an image_, that image should specify alternative text, e.g.

```html
<a href="/apple">
    <img src="apple.png" alt="Apple">
</a>
```

Before HTML5, an anchor was often used to create a target to link to, e.g.

```html
<a name="example"></a>
```

This is not supported in HTML5, and the use of anchors for targets is discouraged. Use an `id`
attribute on a non-anchor tag instead, e.g.

```html
<div id="example"> ... </div>
```

Empty links (e.g. `<a></a>`) are often incorrectly used for buttons or controls in a
JavaScript application. In these cases, you should usually define the link as having a more appropriate
role, e.g. as a button. To do this, use the `role` attribute (e.g `<a role="button">`), or replace 
the `<a>` tag with a more appropriate tag, such as `<button>`.

For more details, see [Technique H91](https://www.w3.org/TR/2016/NOTE-WCAG20-TECHS-20161007/H91)
and learn about [ARIA roles](https://www.sitepoint.com/how-to-use-aria-effectively-with-html5/).

bad-anchor

February 2026

January 2026

Financial Times

	Title / URL	Issues
	Middle East war \| Financial Timeswww.ft.com/middle-east-war	26
	Global Economy \| Financial Timeswww.ft.com/global-economy	6
	Europe \| Financial Timeswww.ft.com/europe	4
	World \| Financial Timeswww.ft.com/world	4
	Companies \| Financial Timeswww.ft.com/companies	3
	Professional services \| Financial Timeswww.ft.com/professional-services	3
	Americas \| Financial Timeswww.ft.com/americas	3
	US politics & policy \| Financial Timeswww.ft.com/us-politics-policy	2
	Financials \| Financial Timeswww.ft.com/financials	2
	Middle East & North Africa \| Financial Timeswww.ft.com/middle-east-north-africa	2

Ensure links can be used by screen readers

Financial Times

Where this issue has occurred