Summary

  • Screen readers pull every link on a page into a standalone list stripped of surrounding context, so duplicate wording like Learn More becomes indistinguishable.
  • WCAG Success Criterion 2.4.4 requires that a link’s purpose be determinable from its own text alone, not from nearby paragraphs or headings.
  • Our audits of university sites found identical link wording pointing to different destinations as the single most consistent failure across program pages, admissions pages, and directories.

Link text breaks accessibility when it depends on the words around it to make sense, because screen readers let users pull every link on a page into a standalone list that strips away that context surrounding them. 

According to our audit, duplicate link text is the most common accessibility issue on university sites, affecting a whopping 96% of sites tested.

This keeps happening on program pages, deadline listings, and forms because of how the copy gets written, which means it’s on us as the people writing that copy to be the ones who fix it.

JAWS, NVDA, and VoiceOver all offer this links list view, pulling every link on a page into a single, context-free list. The University of Rochester’s summary of WebAIM’s screen reader user survey found that navigating this way is one of the methods users rely on most to move through a page.

On program listing pages, every degree often ends in a link labeled “Learn more,” with nothing distinguishing one from another. Pulled into a links list, a screen reader reads that same phrase five times in a row.

This is exactly the failure WCAG Success Criterion 2.4.4 was written to catch. The standard requires that “the purpose of each link can be determined from the link text alone” or from that text together with its programmatically determined context. 

What our higher ed audits reveal about link text

Across the university sites we audited, one failure shows up more than any other: identical wording pointing to different destinations. 

It isn’t confined to one page type or one department that happened to miss a memo. It shows up on program pages, admissions pages, department directories, and on nearly every university site in our dataset. A single flagged page would point to a bad template, but a pattern this consistent points somewhere else.

Page templates get audited once and reused for years. Copy gets written fresh every semester, by different people, under deadline pressure, for a new cohort of pages that all need a link to somewhere. Nobody sits down and decides to write “Learn more” forty times across a site. It just happens, one page at a time, because it’s the fastest thing to type when a link needs text and the clock is running.

That’s the useful part of this data. A defect in a template gets fixed once and stays fixed. A habit baked into how five different offices write their own pages needs a different kind of fix, and it starts with those of us typing the words.

Here’s a rule of thumb for how to fix it:

Name the noun, not the verb

The test takes ten seconds. Strip a page down to just its links, the same stripped view assistive tech already exposes, and scan for repeats. If two links share the same words but point to different destinations, rewrite one.

  • Instead of “Learn more,” use “Learn more about our programs”
  • Instead of “Download,” use “Download the FAFSA worksheet”

And so on. Name the thing that’s being linked to, and make sure each destination URL has different link text associated with it.

Once you get used to it, fixing it takes just a few minutes with the page open.

What one fix reveals about your site’s accessibility

Nothing about a page with ten “Learn more” links looks broken. A sighted editor scans the layout, checks the spacing, confirms the buttons render, and signs off. That’s exactly why the pattern survives so many reviews.

Our audit data documents this failure alongside sixteen others recurring across the same set of higher ed sites, collected in our ebook, The 17 Most Common WCAG Failures on University Websites. Some of those sixteen are just as invisible to a visual check. A few are even worse. 

Public institutions already know a deadline is attached to this work. Private colleges face the same practical exposure under Title III, just without a fixed date (yet) forcing the question.

But beyond that, we have a responsibility to make sure our sites are equally accessible for every user. When that accessibility also affects a person’s education, it’s all the more important.

Frequently asked questions

Does “learn more” always fail WCAG?

No. A single “Learn more” link with clear surrounding context can pass. The failure appears when the same phrase repeats across a page or site, pointing to different destinations with no way to tell them apart.

Yes. A list of files labeled “Download form” repeats the same problem. Name each one instead, the FAFSA worksheet, the housing waiver form.

What does each of WCAG 2.4.4 and 2.4.9 require?

Success Criterion 2.4.4 asks that a link’s purpose be clear from its wording plus immediate context, such as the surrounding sentence. 2.4.9 sets a higher bar: purpose must be clear from that wording by itself, with no context needed.

How often should a site audit its link text?

Check during any major content migration or redesign, since a new template rarely fixes old habits on its own, and again on a regular cycle independent of any redesign work. Link text habits return every time new pages get built, by new writers, under new deadlines, so a one-time fix rarely holds for more than a semester or two.

Do private universities face the same compliance deadline?

Public universities work under the Department of Justice’s Title II rule, with compliance dates addressed in an Interim Final Rule for state and local entities, per ADA.gov and the Federal Register notice published in April 2026. Private universities carry the same practical exposure under Title III, without a matching statutory date.