link-name-present

Links have an accessible name

automaticWCAG 4.1.2 (A)confidence: highseverity: seriousrobust

Checks that links expose a non-empty accessible name.

Applies to. Applies to <a href>, <area href> and elements with role="link" that are included in the accessibility tree. An <a> without an href is not a link and is not matched.

Expectation. The element has a non-empty accessible name. A programmatic name is taken first (aria-labelledby, aria-label, an associated <label>, title), and failing that the element falls back to its own subtree text, counting each descendant's own name (an <img alt>, aria-label or title), the shape behind the common <a><img alt="..."></a> logo link. The content fallback is suppressed when an explicit, known role that is not name-from-content is present; an unrecognized role token falls back to the implicit role.

Examples

pass
<a href="/x">Read more</a>

The link's text content is its accessible name.

fail
<a href="/x"></a>

No text content, `aria-label`, or `aria-labelledby`.

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