UCDC Law Program | UCDC

Information for Prospective Students | UCDC

UCDC COVID Protocols (updated 2.11.25) | UCDC

User account | UCDC

Page not found | UCDC

UC Washington Center - Home | UCDC

SUIP - Subsidizing Unpaid Interns Program | UCDC

Faculty Opportunities & Resources | UCDC

UCDC Summer Academic Program | UCDC

Academics | UCDC

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

June 2025

May 2025

University of California Washington Center

	Title / URL	Issues
	UCDC Law Program \| UCDCwww.ucdc.edu/academic/law	6
	Information for Prospective Students \| UCDCwww.ucdc.edu/prospective	5
	UCDC COVID Protocols (updated 2.11.25) \| UCDCwww.ucdc.edu/covid19	5
	User account \| UCDCwww.ucdc.edu/user/login/sso	5
	Page not found \| UCDCwww.ucdc.edu/invented-url-for-404-page	5
	UC Washington Center - Home \| UCDCwww.ucdc.edu/	5
	SUIP - Subsidizing Unpaid Interns Program \| UCDCwww.ucdc.edu/suip	5
	Faculty Opportunities & Resources \| UCDCwww.ucdc.edu/facultyopportunities	5
	UCDC Summer Academic Program \| UCDCwww.ucdc.edu/academicsummer	5
	Academics \| UCDCwww.ucdc.edu/academics	5

Combine adjacent links with the same destination

University of California Washington Center

Where this issue has occurred