A sighted user can look at a link that says "Learn more" and understand from the surrounding context what it links to. A screen reader user navigating by links hears a list: "Learn more. Learn more. Learn more. Learn more. Learn more." Five identical links. Five different destinations. No way to tell which is which without visiting each one.
WCAG 2.4.4 (Link Purpose in Context) requires that the purpose of each link can be determined from the link text alone, or from the link text together with its programmatically determined context. When five links share identical text but point to different URLs, this criterion fails.
How it happens
The most common patterns:
"Read more" and "Learn more." Blog listing pages, product cards, and service sections use these as standard call-to-action text. Each card links to a different page, but the link text is identical across all of them.
"Click here." Despite decades of web accessibility guidance, "click here" persists. It's meaningless to screen reader users and contributes nothing to SEO either, since link text is a ranking signal.
Icon-only links. Social media icons, share buttons, and navigation arrows that have no visible text and no aria-label. Screen readers announce these as "link" with no description at all.
"View details" on product listings. E-commerce sites frequently use identical link text on every product in a grid. Twenty products, twenty "View details" links, zero distinguishing information.
Why it matters beyond accessibility
Screen readers aren't the only consumer of link text. Search engines use anchor text to understand what the linked page is about. Twenty "Read more" links on a page tell Google nothing about the destination pages. Descriptive link text like "Read our pricing breakdown" or "See the full case study" gives both users and search engines useful context.
Keyboard users who navigate using the Tab key also benefit from unique link text. When they Tab through a page, they see each link highlighted in sequence. Identical text makes it impossible to know where each link goes without activating it.
What the tool does
The Identical Link Text Audit scans your page, groups all links by their visible text content, and flags groups where the same text points to different URLs. It distinguishes between links that are genuinely identical (same text, same destination, which is fine) and links where the same text goes to different places (which is the accessibility problem).
Each finding includes the repeated text, the number of links sharing it, and the distinct destinations. The fix is usually straightforward: replace generic text with descriptive text, or add an aria-label that distinguishes each link.
If you're building sites that need to pass accessibility audits, The $20 Dollar Agency covers the WCAG baseline to hit before client handoff.
Fact-check notes and sources
- WCAG 2.4.4 Link Purpose (In Context): W3C WCAG 2.1 Success Criterion 2.4.4
- Link text as a Google ranking signal: Google Search Central documentation on links
- Screen reader link navigation: NVDA and JAWS both support navigating by links list, where identical text creates indistinguishable entries
Related reading
- WCAG accessibility audit
- Redundant alt text on images
- Image alt text audit
- ADA litigation risk for small businesses
This post is informational, not legal or accessibility-consulting advice. Mentions of W3C, WCAG, NVDA, and JAWS are nominative fair use. No affiliation is implied.
