A-Z of MS | Multiple sclerosis encyclopedia | MS Trust

Staying Smart | Cognitive health and MS

About MS | MS Trust

Wellbeing and MS | MS Trust

Causes of MS | MS Trust

Types of MS | MS Trust

Multiple sclerosis | Expert support for people with MS | MS Trust

404 - Page not found | MS Trust

About the MS Trust | MS Trust

Get involved | MS Trust

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

Multiple Sclerosis Trust

	Title / URL	Issues
	A-Z of MS \| Multiple sclerosis encyclopedia \| MS Trustmstrust.org.uk/a-z	22
	Staying Smart \| Cognitive health and MSmstrust.org.uk/information-support/staying-smart	22
	About MS \| MS Trustmstrust.org.uk/information-support/about-ms	22
	Wellbeing and MS \| MS Trustmstrust.org.uk/information-support/wellbeing-ms	22
	Causes of MS \| MS Trustmstrust.org.uk/information-support/about-ms/causes-ms	22
	Types of MS \| MS Trustmstrust.org.uk/information-support/about-ms/types-ms	22
	Multiple sclerosis \| Expert support for people with MS \| MS Trustmstrust.org.uk/	22
	404 - Page not found \| MS Trustmstrust.org.uk/invented-url-for-404-page	22
	About the MS Trust \| MS Trustmstrust.org.uk/what-we-do/about-us	22
	Get involved \| MS Trustmstrust.org.uk/get-involved	22

Combine adjacent links with the same destination

Multiple Sclerosis Trust

Where this issue has occurred