How Aid Works | Student Aid | Penn State

Penn State Undergraduate Degrees | Bachelor Degrees | Majors | Penn State

Penn State Admissions | College Admissions | Penn State

Explore Penn State | Penn State

The Pennsylvania State University | Penn State

Costs and Aid | Penn State

Academics | Penn State Degrees | Penn State

invented-url-for-404-page

Interdisciplinary Research | Penn State

First time visit: View without clicking anything

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

Pennsylvania State University

Title / URL	Issues
How Aid Works \| Student Aid \| Penn Statewww.psu.edu/costs-aid/how-aid-works	2
Penn State Undergraduate Degrees \| Bachelor Degrees \| Majors \| Penn Statewww.psu.edu/academics/undergraduate	1
Penn State Admissions \| College Admissions \| Penn Statewww.psu.edu/admission	1
Explore Penn State \| Penn Statewww.psu.edu/admission/undergraduate/explore	1
The Pennsylvania State University \| Penn Statewww.psu.edu/	1
Costs and Aid \| Penn Statewww.psu.edu/costs-aid	1
Academics \| Penn State Degrees \| Penn Statewww.psu.edu/academics	1
invented-url-for-404-pagewww.psu.edu/invented-url-for-404-page	1
Interdisciplinary Research \| Penn Statewww.psu.edu/research	1
First time visit: View without clicking anythingwww.psu.edu/	1

Combine adjacent links with the same destination

Pennsylvania State University

Where this issue has occurred