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Re: Link text best practice

for

From: John E Brandt
Date: Jan 4, 2011 9:36AM

I have never heard "...that URLs should always be used for link text..." -
in fact I have heard, and preached, the opposite. The only exception might
be in a digital document that will be printed out and distributed in paper
form. But that should probably be a separate document and not an HTML/XHTML
page.

You might want to point your colleagues to WebAIM for a nice
summary/discussion:
http://webaim.org/techniques/hypertext/

Oh, so another example of where the actual URL is used (as opposed to a
semantically correct text description of the link) would be in e-mails like
this that are using text formatting as opposed to HTML.

~j

John E. Brandt
www.jebswebs.com
<EMAIL REMOVED>
207-622-7937
Augusta, Maine, USA

-----Original Message-----
From: <EMAIL REMOVED>
[mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED> ] On Behalf Of Gareth Dart
Sent: Tuesday, January 04, 2011 11:02 AM
To: <EMAIL REMOVED>
Subject: [WebAIM] Link text best practice

Hi guys,

I've been on and on at my content authors for the past three years to stop
using 'click here' or an URL as text for hyperlinks and instead to use a
short phrase which is a description of the content being linked to, the
rationale being that this is the friendliest approach to screen readers.

Some of them have told me that they've read (no references given) 'somewhere
online' that URLs should always be used for link text. I haven't been able
to find this anywhere, but wanted to check here too.

So, for the avoidance of doubt, what is best practice for link text?

Many thanks,

G

Gareth Dart
Web Developer
Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA)
95 Promenade, Cheltenham, Gloucestershire GL50 1HZ T 01242 211128 F 01242
211122 W www.hesa.ac.uk <http://www.hesa.ac.uk/>;