Southern Miss Now | The University of Southern Mississippi

404 Page Not Found | The University of Southern Mississippi

First time visit: View without clicking anything

Honors College | The University of Southern Mississippi

Graduate School | The University of Southern Mississippi

Office of Online Learning | The University of Southern Mississippi

The University of Southern Mississippi

PARTNERS FOR THE ARTS | Arts | The University of Southern Mississippi

Title IX | The University of Southern Mississippi

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

December 2025

November 2025

University of Southern Mississippi

Title / URL	Issues
Southern Miss Now \| The University of Southern Mississippiwww.usm.edu/news/index.php	2
404 Page Not Found \| The University of Southern Mississippiwww.usm.edu/invented-url-for-404-page	2
First time visit: View without clicking anythingwww.usm.edu/	2
Honors College \| The University of Southern Mississippiwww.usm.edu/honors/	2
Graduate School \| The University of Southern Mississippiwww.usm.edu/graduate-school/	2
Southern Miss Now \| The University of Southern Mississippiwww.usm.edu/news/	2
Office of Online Learning \| The University of Southern Mississippiwww.usm.edu/online-learning/index.php	2
The University of Southern Mississippiwww.usm.edu/	2
PARTNERS FOR THE ARTS \| Arts \| The University of Southern Mississippiwww.usm.edu/arts/partners-arts.php	2
Title IX \| The University of Southern Mississippiwww.usm.edu/title-ix/index.php	2

Avoid linking to anchors that do not exist

University of Southern Mississippi

Where this issue has occurred