Empty Links Checker: Find Anchor Tags With No Text on Any Page

RankNibbler scans every anchor tag on your page for empty links — those with no visible text, no aria-label, no title attribute, and no image with alt text. Free, instant, no signup. Each empty link is listed with its href so you can identify and fix them quickly.

Check a page now →

What Are Empty Links?

Empty links are <a> tags that contain no information a user or search engine can use to understand what the link does. Specifically, they are links where all of the following are missing:

• Visible text between the opening and closing tags
• aria-label attribute
• title attribute
• An <img> inside with meaningful alt text

From an accessibility and SEO standpoint, an empty link is effectively invisible. Screen readers announce "link" without a destination. Search engines see a link with no anchor text to interpret. Users hovering or tabbing see nothing meaningful.

Why Empty Links Hurt Your Site

Accessibility Failure

WCAG 2.1 Success Criterion 2.4.4 requires every link to have a "purpose that can be determined from the link text alone." Empty links fail this criterion outright. Users relying on screen readers hear a useless "link" announcement with no destination clue, forcing them to skip or guess.

Lost Anchor Text Signal

Search engines use anchor text as one of their strongest signals for understanding what the linked page is about. An internal link to /pricing with text "pricing plans" tells Google exactly what that target page covers. The same link with no anchor text provides no signal at all — wasted ranking opportunity.

Lost Link Equity Distribution

PageRank flows through links. A link with no context still passes PageRank, but without anchor text, Google has less confidence about what the link represents — which can reduce how much weight the link gets.

User Confusion

Sighted users who keyboard-navigate see a highlighted link with no text. Mobile users tapping what they think is a button find themselves on an unexpected page. Empty links are a UX failure before they are an SEO failure.

Common Causes of Empty Links

Icon-Only Links Without Aria-Labels

Social media icons, menu buttons, share buttons, and action icons are the #1 source of empty links. The visible icon has no alt text, and the link itself has no text:

<!-- Bad -->
<a href="https://twitter.com/brand">
  <svg>...</svg>
</a>

<!-- Good -->
<a href="https://twitter.com/brand" aria-label="Follow us on Twitter">
  <svg aria-hidden="true">...</svg>
</a>

Image Links Missing Alt Text

<!-- Bad -->
<a href="/products"><img src="product.jpg"></a>

<!-- Good -->
<a href="/products"><img src="product.jpg" alt="View all products"></a>

JavaScript-Wrapped Empty Anchors

Some frameworks wrap elements in empty <a> tags for click handling. These are semantically wrong — use <button> instead, or add proper text/aria-label.

CSS-Hidden Text

Text hidden via display:none or visibility:hidden doesn't count for accessibility or SEO. Use position:absolute; left:-9999px; class (visually-hidden pattern) if you need sighted-user-invisible but screen-reader-readable text.

Whitespace-Only Content

<a href="/page"> </a> is not the same as <a href="/page">Page</a>. Whitespace is not text.

How to Fix Empty Links

1. Run the checker. Get a list of every empty link on a page.
2. Pick the best signal for each link:
   • If the link has an icon — add aria-label to the <a> and aria-hidden="true" to the icon
   • If the link contains an image — add alt text describing the destination
   • If the link is text-only but empty — add visible text
3. Validate with a screen reader. Use VoiceOver (Mac), NVDA (Windows), or TalkBack (Android) to verify every link announces usefully.
4. Re-audit.
5. Prevent recurrence. Add an accessibility linter (axe, WAVE, Lighthouse) to your build pipeline.

Best Aria-Label Patterns

Related Accessibility & Link Tools

• Accessibility checker — broader WCAG audit.
• Image alt text checker — related alt-text audit.
• Nofollow checker — audit link rel attributes.
• How to write anchor text — the content side of link SEO.
• Link analysis — full internal/external breakdown.