Media and Public Relations Team | News | The University of Sheffield

Staff | Procurement | The University of Sheffield

Academic schools and departments | Departments, schools and services | The University of Sheffield

The University Library | Library | The University of Sheffield

Visit us | Visit | The University of Sheffield

Latest news | News | The University of Sheffield

Research | ELTC | The University of Sheffield

Policies | Study at Sheffield | The University of Sheffield

Full-time courses | ELTC | The University of Sheffield

Queen's Anniversary Prizes | About us | The University of Sheffield

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 Sheffield

Title / URL	Issues
Media and Public Relations Team \| News \| The University of Sheffieldwww.sheffield.ac.uk/news/contact-us	8
Staff \| Procurement \| The University of Sheffieldwww.sheffield.ac.uk/procurement/staff	4
Academic schools and departments \| Departments, schools and services \| The University of Sheffieldwww.sheffield.ac.uk/departments/academic	3
The University Library \| Library \| The University of Sheffieldwww.sheffield.ac.uk/library	2
Visit us \| Visit \| The University of Sheffieldwww.sheffield.ac.uk/visit-us	2
Latest news \| News \| The University of Sheffieldwww.sheffield.ac.uk/news/latest	2
Research \| ELTC \| The University of Sheffieldwww.sheffield.ac.uk/eltc/about/research	2
Policies \| Study at Sheffield \| The University of Sheffieldwww.sheffield.ac.uk/study/policies	2
Full-time courses \| ELTC \| The University of Sheffieldwww.sheffield.ac.uk/eltc/full-time	2
Queen's Anniversary Prizes \| About us \| The University of Sheffieldwww.sheffield.ac.uk/about/queens-prize	2

Combine adjacent links with the same destination

University of Sheffield

Where this issue has occurred