Fixing Vague Link Text

Why link wording matters so much

Sighted visitors skim a page by eye. People who cannot see it skim in other ways, and links are one of the main ones. Every desktop screen reader can gather the links on a page into a single list: in NVDA and JAWS this is the elements list opened with Insert+F7, and in VoiceOver on a Mac it is the rotor, opened with Control+Option+U. The list shows each link's text and nothing else. Tabbing through a page gives a similar experience, one link at a time.

Speech recognition users meet the same problem from the other side. With Voice Control on Apple devices or Windows voice access, you activate a link by speaking what it says. If the visible words are "here" and there are four such links, the software has to ask which one you meant. If the link's hidden name differs from its visible words, saying what you can see may do nothing at all.

Search engines read link wording too. Google's own guidance asks for anchor text that is descriptive, reasonably concise and relevant to the page it points to. The SEO side of that, including anchor text on internal links, is covered in fixing anchor text; this guide stays with the accessibility rules.

What WCAG actually requires

Note what 2.4.4 does and does not say. A "Read more" link placed right after a heading can pass at level A, because the heading is its context. It is still a poor experience in a links list, which is why most accessibility specialists recommend writing links that make sense alone wherever you can, and why the checker flags them.

What the checker reports and what each finding means

• Generic link text. The whole link is a stock phrase such as "click here", "here", "read more", "more", "learn more", "details", "this page" or "link".
• Same text, different destinations. Several links share identical wording but go to different addresses, so nobody can tell them apart in a list.
• Empty link. The link has no text content, no alt text on an image inside it and no ARIA name. A screen reader announces just "link", or reads out the address.
• Image link without alt text. A logo or product photo wrapped in a link, where the image has no alt or an empty one.
• Accessible name does not match visible text. An aria-label replaces the visible words with different ones.
• Raw web address as the text. The link reads https://www.example.co.uk/downloads/2026/brochure-final-v3.pdf, which is tiring to hear read aloud.

An automated check can detect wording and empty names. It cannot tell whether "Our prices" is a good description of a page that is actually about delivery charges, so read the links list yourself too.

The fix, step by step

Before and after: rewriting common patterns

When you rewrite, resist stuffing keywords into links. "Cheap emergency plumber Northfield plumbing services" is no easier to scan than "click here" and reads as spam to people and search engines alike. The goal is the shortest phrase that would make sense if someone read it on its own.

Markup for the tricky cases

Visually hidden extra words

This class hides text from sight but keeps it in the accessible name. Most themes already include one, often called screen-reader-text, sr-only or visually-hidden.

.visually-hidden {
  position: absolute !important;
  width: 1px; height: 1px;
  padding: 0; margin: -1px;
  overflow: hidden;
  clip: rect(0, 0, 0, 0);
  white-space: nowrap;
  border: 0;
}

<a href="/blog/winter-boiler-checks/">
  Read more<span class="visually-hidden"> about winter boiler checks</span>
</a>

Put the hidden words after the visible ones, so the accessible name still begins with "Read more" and voice control commands keep working.

A card where the heading is the only link

<article class="card">
  <img src="/img/boiler.jpg" alt="">
  <h3><a class="card-link" href="/blog/winter-boiler-checks/">Winter boiler checks</a></h3>
  <p>Five things to do before the first cold snap.</p>
</article>

.card { position: relative; }
.card-link::after {
  content: "";
  position: absolute;
  inset: 0;
}

The whole card is clickable, but screen readers and the Tab key meet one link with a clear name. The image has empty alt text because the heading already says what it shows; see fixing alt text for when that is right. Keep any other interactive items in the card, such as a wishlist button, above the stretched area with position: relative and a higher z-index.

An icon-only social link

<a href="https://www.example.com/harbourplumbing">
  <svg aria-hidden="true" focusable="false" width="24" height="24">...</svg>
  <span class="visually-hidden">Harbour Plumbing on Facebook</span>
</a>

For more on when to reach for aria-label instead of hidden text, and the mistakes that make ARIA names worse, see fixing ARIA labels.

Where vague links come from on each platform

• WordPress. "Read more" and "Continue reading" links on archive pages come from the theme's excerpt or more-tag settings. Many well-built themes already append the post title in hidden text; if yours does not, the fix belongs in the theme or a child theme rather than in each post. In the block editor, the Read More block and the Query Loop block control this text.
• Shopify. "View all", "Shop now" and "Learn more" buttons in banners and collection sections usually take their wording from section settings in the theme editor, so you can change them without code. Product cards in collection grids often contain duplicate image and title links in the theme's card snippet.
• Page builders and email tools. Button widgets default to text such as "Click here" or "Button". Change the default in the builder's global settings where you can.
• Hand-written content. The biggest source is simply writing habit. A short line in your style guide saying "link the words that describe the destination" prevents most of it.

Edge cases

Links that look like buttons, and buttons that look like links

If it takes the visitor to another page or file, it is a link, whatever it looks like. If it performs an action on the current page, such as adding to the basket or opening a panel, it should be a <button>. Screen readers announce the two differently, and users rely on that to know what will happen.

Email addresses and phone numbers

A link whose text is an email address or phone number is acceptable, because the text is the destination. "Email us" or "Call 01234 567890" is equally clear.

Legal citations and references

In long documents with many references, short link text such as a footnote number is common. Give footnote links a hidden label such as "Footnote 3", and link back from the note to where it was cited.

Link colour and underlines

Links inside paragraphs need to stand out from the surrounding text by more than colour alone, unless the colours differ strongly and another cue appears on hover and focus. Keeping the underline is the simplest way to pass. Contrast ratios are covered in fixing colour contrast.