links/descriptive-text

Reports a link whose whole text is a phrase that does not say where the link leads, such as "here" or "click here". Screen reader users often move through a page by its list of links, which reads each link by its text alone, and readers who scan a page see a link's text before the sentence around it.

Problem rule, reported only. Presets: none. Dialects: all. Options: prohibitedTexts.

Reported:

To install the tool, follow the steps [here](install.md).

Not reported:

Follow the [installation steps](install.md).

prohibitedTexts is an array of the phrases to report, default ["click here", "here", "link", "more"]. They are compared as link text is (below), in any script, and each needs at least one letter or digit; [] reports nothing. Add the phrases of the languages your documents are written in, such as "hier" or "weiterlesen".

Edge cases and advanced usage

Details: text that names the destination or purpose, such as "the installation guide", serves both kinds of reader. The whole text is compared, without case, blank space, punctuation, or symbols, so [Click here!] is click here. A text that says more, such as [Read more about pricing], is not reported. Inline and reference links are checked, and in Obsidian the text that a wikilink shows: its alias, or else its target. An image's alternative text is the text of a link around it.

Not checked: autolinks, which show their destination, embeds, and HTML <a> elements. A link's title does not make its text descriptive: the title is the link's description, not its name, so screen readers do not list links by it, and other readers see it only when a mouse hovers over the link.