Doing Business in ND | North Dakota State Government - ND Portal

Tools & Resources | North Dakota State Government - ND Portal

Working in ND | North Dakota State Government - ND Portal

Home | North Dakota State Government - ND Portal

Government | North Dakota State Government - ND Portal

Contact | North Dakota State Government - ND Portal

Innovation & Industries | North Dakota State Government - ND Portal

State Government | North Dakota State Government - ND Portal

Safety | North Dakota State Government - ND Portal

Social Media | North Dakota State Government - ND Portal

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

November 2025

October 2025

State of North Dakota

	Title / URL	Issues
	Doing Business in ND \| North Dakota State Government - ND Portalwww.nd.gov/doing-business-nd	3
	Tools & Resources \| North Dakota State Government - ND Portalwww.nd.gov/working-nd/tools-resources	3
	Working in ND \| North Dakota State Government - ND Portalwww.nd.gov/working-nd	3
	Home \| North Dakota State Government - ND Portalwww.nd.gov/	3
	Government \| North Dakota State Government - ND Portalwww.nd.gov/government	3
	Contact \| North Dakota State Government - ND Portalwww.nd.gov/contact	3
	Innovation & Industries \| North Dakota State Government - ND Portalwww.nd.gov/innovation-industries	3
	State Government \| North Dakota State Government - ND Portalwww.nd.gov/government/state-government	3
	Safety \| North Dakota State Government - ND Portalwww.nd.gov/living-nd/safety	3
	Social Media \| North Dakota State Government - ND Portalwww.nd.gov/social-media	3

Combine adjacent links with the same destination

State of North Dakota

Where this issue has occurred