The European Union has implemented new accessibility regulations with a compliance deadline of June 28th, 2025. Many companies are proactively taking steps to meet these standards to avoid penalties and ensure their digital platforms are accessible to all users.

Introduction

The European Accessibility Act (EAA) - Directive 2019/882, which establishes a comprehensive set of accessibility rules for digital offerings within the EU market, is going to come into effect next year. The deadline for compliance with this new legislation is June 28th, 2025. WCAG 2 Level AA is widely recognised as a benchmark for achieving EAA compliance.

With this in mind, I'm taking a look at some of the most common accessibility issues according to The WebAIM 2024 report on the accessibility of the top 1,000,000 home pages, who they affect, and how to fix them.

In this post, I'll explore empty links — their impact, who they affect, and how to fix them.

Why empty links matter

Firstly, let's take a quick look at a couple of fairly typical examples.

href="/Canine_hip_dysplasia">
    src="/doberman.png">


 href="https://bsky.app/">
    class="icon icon--bluesky">

Links containing icons, images without alt text or simply empty lead to confusion for users of assistive technologies. WebAIM 2024 report on the accessibility of the top 1,000,000 home pages found that almost half of the pages tested contained empty links (or buttons).

The lack of any text label on these controls means that assistive technologies can't determine where links go.

To add an accessible text to the link there are a couple of options

href="/Canine_hip_dysplasia">
    alt="Canine hip dysplasia" src="/doberman.png" ...>



 href="https://bsky.app/" aria-label="Bluesky">
    class="icon icon--bluesky">



 href="https://bsky.app/">
    aria-hidden="true" class="icon icon--bluesky">
    class="visually-hidden">Bluesky

(for visually-hidden example see bootstrap visually-hidden helper)

Who is impacted by missing link text?

Missing link text creates significant barriers for several groups of web users.

For example; it affects people who are blind or have severe visual impairments who rely on screen readers. When these users encounter a link without text, their screen reader simply announces "link" without any context about where it leads.

Voice control users, such as people with motor disabilities or temporary injuries, also struggle significantly. They need to be able to say the name of a link to click it, but they can't activate a link that has no name.

Users with cognitive disabilities also find unnamed links particularly challenging. They need clear, consistent navigation to make sense of websites, and unlabelled links create unnecessary mental work.

Related WCAG guidelines

Other related issue

Alt text doesn't describe the link target 

href="/Canine_hip_dysplasia">
    alt="Doberman dog asleep in a wicker basket" ...>

In this case, the alt text should describe the link target not the image itself. e.g.

href="/Canine_hip_dysplasia">
    alt="Canine hip dysplasia" ...>

Duplicate adjacent links 

href="/Canine_hip_dysplasia">
    alt="Canine hip dysplasia" ...>

 href="/Canine_hip_dysplasia">
   Canine hip dysplasia

In this case the links should be combined so there is only one link. And the image should not have an alt value.

href="/Canine_hip_dysplasia">
    alt="" ...>
   Canine hip dysplasia

In some rare cases, where you are providing links for pointer users and you can't combine the links, you may have to resort to removing the duplicate form the accessibility tree.

href="/Canine_hip_dysplasia" 
    tabindex="-1" 
    aria-hidden="true">
    alt="" ...>

 href="/Canine_hip_dysplasia">
   Canine hip dysplasia

With this technique pointer users can click on the image and keyboard users don't have to tab though duplicate links.

Links out of context

Links that lack context e.g. "Read more".

Canine hip dysplasia is one of the most 
  common musculoskeletal conditions that 
  affect our canine companions


   href="/Canine_hip_dysplasia">
   Read more

To add context we can use visually hidden text or aria-label. For example;

Canine hip dysplasia is one of the most 
  common musculoskeletal conditions that 
  affect our canine companions


   href="/Canine_hip_dysplasia" 
    aria-label="Canine hip dysplasia. Read more">
    Read more

Adding context is important for screen reader users as they often navigate by listing all the links on a page. If all they hear is "read more, read more, read more," they have no idea where each link leads. They lack the visual context that sighted users have.

Conclusion

All links having accessible text ensures everyone, including screen reader users and those with cognitive disabilities, can understand the link's purpose and destination, leading to improved navigation and a better user experience.

Providing accessible link text is generally easy and often only requires small coding change, using ARIA attributes or visually hidden text when the visual text isn't sufficient. It's a fundamental accessibility practice that significantly enhances website usability for many users with minimal effort.

Tip

To see how a link will be announced by screen readers open your browsers devtools panel, highlight the link you want to inspect, open the accessibility tab and look for the value in the "Name" section.

Example screenshot of chrome browser devtools with accessibility tab selected and the Name section underlined