{"id":1018,"date":"2019-03-05T13:30:25","date_gmt":"2019-03-05T18:30:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wordpress.ocps.net\/presenceblog\/?p=1018"},"modified":"2019-04-03T11:54:40","modified_gmt":"2019-04-03T15:54:40","slug":"do-users-really-want-to-see-the-url-of-your-hyperlinks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wordpress.ocps.net\/presenceblog\/do-users-really-want-to-see-the-url-of-your-hyperlinks\/","title":{"rendered":"Do Users Really Want to See the URL of Your Hyperlinks?"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2>Working with links<br \/>\n<\/h2>\n<p>When you enter a hyperlink within the content area of a page, the link has to surround either text or an image.  (If not, the link is still checked whether it is valid or broken, but it is not visible on the page.) On many pages, I&#8217;ve seen the displayed text for the hyperlink to be the URL of the page or document of the link as shown below.\n<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/wordpress.ocps.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/030519_1830_DoUsersReal1.png\" alt=\"\"\/>\n\t<\/p>\n<p>But do the visitors to your site really care about what the link is or would they be just as satisfied with just a reference to page or document name?  I propose that the following alternate version of the same paragraph is more user friendly to the average reader.  It tells the reader where the link goes in conversational terms rather than displaying the URL of the page which does not matter to the reader.\n<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/wordpress.ocps.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/030519_1830_DoUsersReal2.png\" alt=\"\"\/>\n\t<\/p>\n<h2>When possible, keep your links simple.<br \/>\n<\/h2>\n<p>Related to hyperlinks is alt-text.  Every link MUST have alt-text to help visitors using screen readers to understand what happens when they encounter a link a click on it.  If the Alt-text belongs to an image whether it is a link or not, do not use the image or document filename as described above.  Furthermore, do not include additional text that adds nothing to understanding what the image or document is about.  For example, in the following image, what is #1249 in the alt-text?  Does it add anything to understanding what the image is about.\n<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/wordpress.ocps.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/030519_1830_DoUsersReal3.png\" alt=\"\"\/>\n\t<\/p>\n<h2>Invisible &#8216;Phantom&#8217; Broken Links<br \/>\n<\/h2>\n<p>In the first paragraph, I mentioned that if the hyperlink does not surround other text or an image, it will still be a valid hyperlink, but it is invisible on the screen.  Many people have reported broken links that they cannot find on a page.  When I examine the HTML of the page, I often find something like the following:\n<\/p>\n<p>&lt;a href=&#8221;https:\/\/www.ocps.net\/&#8230;&gt;&lt;\/a&gt;\n<\/p>\n<p>Note that there is nothing between the &lt;a&gt; and &lt;\/a&gt; tags.  However the link, defined with the HREF attribute is still considered a valid hyperlink even though it cannot be visually accessed on the resulting page.\n<\/p>\n<p>How did this occur?  Most likely, at some point an editor on the page tried to delete an image or a link that either was not needed anymore or was invalid.  They selected the text or the image and pressed the DEL key to delete it.  However, this action may not have included the open and close anchor tags (&lt;a&gt; and &lt;\/a&gt;).  This left the broken link in the page with no way to visually access it.  How do you insure that you do not leave broken links on pages?  Simply right click on the image or text first and remove the link portion of the hyperlink.  Then go back and delete the image or text.  If you already have a &#8216;phantom&#8217; broken link, the only way to fix it is to access the HTML and remove the anchor tags manually.  If you do not feel comfortable working in HTML, ask someone who is to help you.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Working with links When you enter a hyperlink within the content area of a page, the link has to surround either text or an image. (If not, the link is still checked whether it is valid or broken, but it is not visible on the page.) On many pages, I&#8217;ve seen the displayed text for &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/wordpress.ocps.net\/presenceblog\/do-users-really-want-to-see-the-url-of-your-hyperlinks\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Do Users Really Want to See the URL of Your Hyperlinks?&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[81],"class_list":["post-1018","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-post-showing-a-specific-tip-or-trick-related-to-web-sites","tag-meaningful-tooltips"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1595,"url":"https:\/\/wordpress.ocps.net\/presenceblog\/short-topics-image-and-link-alt-text\/","url_meta":{"origin":1018,"position":0},"title":"Short Topics: Image and Link Alt-text","author":"Carlos Hernandez","date":"December 7, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"Image Alt-text Image and link alt-text is extremely important to the visually impaired who cannot see either the picture or the link text (link text is what appears on the page). Often the alt-text is the only clue to these people to tell them what the picture or link is\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Governance News&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Governance News","link":"https:\/\/wordpress.ocps.net\/presenceblog\/category\/portal-related-news\/news-related-to-site-governance-at-ocps\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Example of poor alt-text for an image that tells the viewer nothing about the image.","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/wordpress.ocps.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/112720_1355_ShortTopics1.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":823,"url":"https:\/\/wordpress.ocps.net\/presenceblog\/hyperlinks-in-documents\/","url_meta":{"origin":1018,"position":1},"title":"Hyperlinks in Documents","author":"Carlos Hernandez","date":"September 21, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"As with links on a web page, links in a document must have alt-text. However, there is a major 'gotcha' which I'll explain a little latter in this post.\u00a0 Let's begin though by looking at what are some of the considerations when composing Alt-text for a link (hyperlink) on a\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;ADA News&quot;","block_context":{"text":"ADA News","link":"https:\/\/wordpress.ocps.net\/presenceblog\/category\/portal-related-news\/news-related-to-ada-and-accessibility\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1355,"url":"https:\/\/wordpress.ocps.net\/presenceblog\/style-and-consistency-part-1-links\/","url_meta":{"origin":1018,"position":2},"title":"Style and Consistency \u2013 Part 1 &#8211; Links","author":"Carlos Hernandez","date":"December 4, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"Style and consistency on your web pages are very important issues when publishing your finished web page. I am going to take a portion of a web page and highlight some of the things you need to review before publishing your next web page. The following is a portion of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;ADA News&quot;","block_context":{"text":"ADA News","link":"https:\/\/wordpress.ocps.net\/presenceblog\/category\/portal-related-news\/news-related-to-ada-and-accessibility\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":400,"url":"https:\/\/wordpress.ocps.net\/presenceblog\/page-links-vs-external-links\/","url_meta":{"origin":1018,"position":3},"title":"Page Links vs External Links","author":"Carlos Hernandez","date":"January 9, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"When you look at the top-level navigation in your school site or the side navigation in your department site, you may have a series of links as shown in the following two images: For a School: For a Department: In either case, you add a new page by choosing your\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;How-To&quot;","block_context":{"text":"How-To","link":"https:\/\/wordpress.ocps.net\/presenceblog\/category\/post-that-explains-how-to-perform-a-specific-activity\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":847,"url":"https:\/\/wordpress.ocps.net\/presenceblog\/quick-tip-you-need-to-do-more-than-just-say-click-here\/","url_meta":{"origin":1018,"position":4},"title":"Quick Tip: You Need to do more than just say Click Here","author":"Carlos Hernandez","date":"October 19, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"I am sure that as you look around the Internet, not just the OCPS web pages, you will find many instances where the text on the page asks you to 'Click Here' to go to another page, or to a form, or to open a document. However, according to accessibility\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;ADA News&quot;","block_context":{"text":"ADA News","link":"https:\/\/wordpress.ocps.net\/presenceblog\/category\/portal-related-news\/news-related-to-ada-and-accessibility\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1033,"url":"https:\/\/wordpress.ocps.net\/presenceblog\/delete-that-hyperlink-before-you-delete-that-text\/","url_meta":{"origin":1018,"position":5},"title":"Delete that Hyperlink before you delete that Text","author":"Carlos Hernandez","date":"March 8, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"Back on March 5, 2019, I mentioned that I had found several cases where a hyperlink appeared to have been edited by visually deleting the text associated with the link, but not deleting the actual link. I mentioned there that you should select the link and delete the link portion\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Tips\/Tricks&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Tips\/Tricks","link":"https:\/\/wordpress.ocps.net\/presenceblog\/category\/post-showing-a-specific-tip-or-trick-related-to-web-sites\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.ocps.net\/presenceblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1018","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.ocps.net\/presenceblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.ocps.net\/presenceblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.ocps.net\/presenceblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.ocps.net\/presenceblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1018"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.ocps.net\/presenceblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1018\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1019,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.ocps.net\/presenceblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1018\/revisions\/1019"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.ocps.net\/presenceblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1018"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.ocps.net\/presenceblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1018"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.ocps.net\/presenceblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1018"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}