Documentation Center

Best practices for authors and editors for creating accessible hyperlinks

If your Components contain links, either to another Component or to an external URL, observe some common rules in order to make the published content accessible.

Link text
Ensure that link text describes the purpose and the destination of the link, and remains understandable when stripped out of context (without the surrounding sentence, paragraph, and so on).
Never use link text like "Click here," "More," "Read more" or other non-descriptive text.
If your hyperlink points to the homepage of a website, you can use the URL of the site, with or without protocol, as link text, especially if the website is well-known to your audience. For example, https://www.example.com, www.example.com or example.com.
title attribute
If it's impossible to add a link text that makes sense when taken out of context, set a title attribute. This creates a worse user experience but can sometimes be the only solution.
Images as links
If your link is presented as an image, rather than as text, set the alt attribute of the image to your link text, followed by the word "link". This allows the screen reader to identify the attribute as being a link description.
The Experience Space user interface has an Accessibility Checker option for rich text fields. If you are an author inserting, or an editor checking, an image link in a rich text field, run the Checker to verify the presence of an alt attribute.
Links that open in a new tab or window
If your link opens its target in a new tab or window, include the text "(opens in new window)" at the end of the link text.
Links to downloadable files
If your link points to a file that the visitor can download, include the type of the file in brackets at the end of the link text. For example, if your link points to a downloadable PDF document called "Corporate Ethics Manual," "Corporate Ethics Manual (PDF)" should be your link text.
Links versus buttons
Don't confuse links and buttons. A link navigates to a non-interactive piece of content; a button performs a clickable action, such as initiating a download, starting a sign-up process, or logging out.