WCAG reference → 2.4.4
2.4.4 Link Purpose (In Context) (level A)
The purpose of a link has to be clear from its text, or from its immediate context.
How it shows up in Confluence
Screen-reader users often bring up a list of every link on a page and move through it. A page whose links read “click here”, “here”, “this page” and “more” produces a list with no information in it. Bare URLs are the other half of the problem: read out character by character, they are slow and tell the listener almost nothing.
What to do about it
Write the destination into the link text: “the 2026 onboarding checklist” rather than “click here”. Two links with the same text must not lead to different places.
What Clearwren checks for this criterion
- Link text does not say where it goes — Screen-reader users often pull up a list of every link on the page; a list of "click here" entries is unusable.
- Bare URL used as link text — A screen reader reads a raw URL character by character, which is slow and tells the listener very little.
- Link has no readable text — A link with no text is announced only as its URL, or skipped entirely.
- Same link text points to different pages — Two links reading "guidelines" that lead to different pages are indistinguishable in a screen reader’s link list.