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

Newly diagnosed | MS Trust

Staying Smart | Cognitive health and MS

About MS | MS Trust

Wellbeing and MS | MS Trust

Causes of MS | MS Trust

Home | 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

December 2025

November 2025

Multiple Sclerosis Trust

Title / URL	Issues
A-Z of MS \| Multiple sclerosis encyclopedia \| MS Trustmstrust.org.uk/a-z	23
Newly diagnosed \| MS Trustmstrust.org.uk/information-support/newly-diagnosed	23
Staying Smart \| Cognitive health and MSmstrust.org.uk/information-support/staying-smart	23
About MS \| MS Trustmstrust.org.uk/information-support/about-ms	23
Wellbeing and MS \| MS Trustmstrust.org.uk/information-support/wellbeing-ms	23
Causes of MS \| MS Trustmstrust.org.uk/information-support/about-ms/causes-ms	23
Home \| MS Trustmstrust.org.uk/	23
404 - Page not found \| MS Trustmstrust.org.uk/invented-url-for-404-page	23
About the MS Trust \| MS Trustmstrust.org.uk/what-we-do/about-us	23
Get involved \| MS Trustmstrust.org.uk/get-involved	23

Combine adjacent links with the same destination

Multiple Sclerosis Trust

Where this issue has occurred