Behind the Books | Mental Health Foundation

Events and Fundraising | Mental Health Foundation

Refugee programmes | Mental Health Foundation

Ways to donate | Mental Health Foundation

Green ribbon | Mental Health Foundation

Get involved | Mental Health Foundation

Loneliness in Young People | Mental Health Foundation

Events & challenges | Mental Health Foundation

About us | Mental Health Foundation

Mental Health Foundation | Everyone deserves good mental health

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

February 2026

January 2026

Mental Health Foundation

	Title / URL	Issues
	Behind the Books \| Mental Health Foundationwww.mentalhealth.org.uk/our-work/public-engagement/behind-books	15
	Events and Fundraising \| Mental Health Foundationwww.mentalhealth.org.uk/get-involved/fundraising	15
	Refugee programmes \| Mental Health Foundationwww.mentalhealth.org.uk/our-work/programmes/refugees	15
	Ways to donate \| Mental Health Foundationwww.mentalhealth.org.uk/get-involved/ways-donate	15
	Green ribbon \| Mental Health Foundationwww.mentalhealth.org.uk/our-work/public-engagement/green-ribbon	15
	Get involved \| Mental Health Foundationwww.mentalhealth.org.uk/get-involved	15
	Loneliness in Young People \| Mental Health Foundationwww.mentalhealth.org.uk/our-work/public-engagement/unlock-loneliness	15
	Events & challenges \| Mental Health Foundationwww.mentalhealth.org.uk/get-involved/events-challenges	15
	About us \| Mental Health Foundationwww.mentalhealth.org.uk/about-us	15
	Mental Health Foundation \| Everyone deserves good mental healthwww.mentalhealth.org.uk/	15

Combine adjacent links with the same destination

Mental Health Foundation

Where this issue has occurred