Departments | CA.gov

Translate | CA.gov

Franchise Tax Board (FTB) | CA.gov

404 | CA.gov

Topics | CA.gov

California State Portal | CA.gov

Services | CA.gov

Civil Rights Department (CRD) | CA.gov

All services | CA.gov

Services list | CA.gov

Do not link to an anchor on the page that does not exist. For example:
linking to `#content` without a valid destination such as `<body id="content"></body>`.

A common web design pattern is to use a named anchor to show an element via JavaScript, e.g.

```html
<a href="#foo" onclick="$('.bar').toggle();">Click me</a>
<div class="bar">
    This is some content.
</div>
``` 

In these cases, the anchor (`#foo`) should point to the `id` of the hidden element:

```html
<a href="#foo" onclick="$('#foo').toggle();">Click me</a>
<div id="foo">
    This is some content.
</div>
```

This way the semantic intent of the link is preserved, even without JavaScript. 
Note that doing so may require modification to your script, to prevent automatic 
scrolling to the named anchor.

linking-to-anchor-on-page-that-does-not-exist

March 2025

February 2025

State of California

Title / URL	Issues
Departments \| CA.govwww.ca.gov/departments/	5
Translate \| CA.govwww.ca.gov/translate/	5
Franchise Tax Board (FTB) \| CA.govwww.ca.gov/departments/236/	5
404 \| CA.govwww.ca.gov/invented-url-for-404-page	5
Topics \| CA.govwww.ca.gov/topics/	5
California State Portal \| CA.govwww.ca.gov/	5
Services \| CA.govwww.ca.gov/services/	5
Civil Rights Department (CRD) \| CA.govwww.ca.gov/departments/215/	5
All services \| CA.govwww.ca.gov/services/all/	5
Services list \| CA.govwww.ca.gov/services/list/	5

Avoid linking to anchors that do not exist

State of California

Where this issue has occurred