How to fix link name on Squarespace

Add a descriptive, screen-reader-accessible label to every link on your store so assistive technologies can announce where each link leads.

Steps for Squarespace

  1. For linked images: click the image block → Edit → Content tab → fill in 'Alt Text' with a description of the link destination.
  2. For navigation icon links (social icons in the footer): go to Pages → Not Linked → Footer, or visit Design → Style Editor → Social Links; Squarespace auto-generates aria-labels for built-in social icons — if they are missing, report via Squarespace support as this is a platform-level template issue.
  3. For Button blocks with vague labels ('Read More'): click the button → Edit → Button Text and change the label to something descriptive.
  4. For custom code blocks (Settings → Advanced → Code Injection, or individual page Code Blocks): manually add aria-label attributes to any <a> tags you have written.
  5. Use CSS injection (Design → Custom CSS) to add a .visually-hidden utility class if you want to include hidden text inside links added via code blocks.
Official Squarespace documentation ↗
<a href="/collections/shoes" aria-label="Shop Women's Running Shoes">
  <!-- icon or image with no visible text -->
  <img src="shoes-banner.jpg" alt="">
</a>

<!-- OR: visually-hidden text technique -->
<a href="/pages/returns">
  <svg aria-hidden="true" focusable="false">…</svg>
  <span class="visually-hidden">View our return policy</span>
</a>

/* Visually-hidden utility class */
.visually-hidden {
  position: absolute;
  width: 1px;
  height: 1px;
  padding: 0;
  margin: -1px;
  overflow: hidden;
  clip: rect(0, 0, 0, 0);
  white-space: nowrap;
  border: 0;
}

What is link name?

Every hyperlink on a webpage must have a meaningful text label that screen readers can announce to blind or low-vision users. A link's accessible name can come from the visible text inside it, an image's alt text, an `aria-label` attribute, or an `aria-labelledby` reference. When a link contains only an icon, an image with no alt text, or an empty `<a>` tag, screen readers have nothing meaningful to say — they may just announce "link" or skip it entirely. WCAG Success Criterion 2.4.4 ("Link Purpose – In Context") requires that every link's purpose can be determined from its label alone or from its surrounding context.

Links without accessible names fail WCAG 2.4.4 (Level AA), which is the legal accessibility standard referenced in the ADA, Section 508 (US), EN 301 549 (EU), and similar laws worldwide — exposing your store to demand letters, complaints, and lawsuits that are increasingly common in ecommerce. Beyond legal risk, screen-reader users (estimated at 7–8 million in the US alone) simply cannot navigate your store's menus, product cards, or checkout links, costing you real customers and revenue. Search engines also use link anchor text as a ranking signal; unnamed links are dead weight that dilutes your internal linking strategy and can suppress category and product page rankings. Fixing this issue improves accessibility, SEO, and conversion simultaneously.

See the complete Link name guide for every platform and the full background.

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