The Independent View | The Independent

Health | The Independent

The Independent | Latest news and features from US, UK and worldwide

Science | The Independent

World | The Independent

First time visit: View without clicking anything

Americas | The Independent

Football︱The Independent

Rethinking Global Aid - latest news, breaking stories and comment - The Independent

F1 news 2024: Schedule, results, standings

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

The Independent

Title / URL	Issues
The Independent View \| The Independentwww.independent.co.uk/voices/editorials	10
Health \| The Independentwww.independent.co.uk/news/health	10
The Independent \| Latest news and features from US, UK and worldwidewww.independent.co.uk/us	10
Science \| The Independentwww.independent.co.uk/news/science	10
World \| The Independentwww.independent.co.uk/news/world	10
First time visit: View without clicking anythingwww.independent.co.uk/us	10
Americas \| The Independentwww.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas	10
Football︱The Independentwww.independent.co.uk/sport/football	1
Rethinking Global Aid - latest news, breaking stories and comment - The Independentwww.independent.co.uk/topic/rethinking-global-aid	1
F1 news 2024: Schedule, results, standingswww.independent.co.uk/f1	1

Combine adjacent links with the same destination

The Independent

Where this issue has occurred