Accessibility guide
Icon links with no text (social media and email icons)
Facts checked Oct 8, 2026
"Link has no discernible text" means an icon, such as a Facebook or envelope icon, has no words behind it, so a screen reader just says "link".
Check the official rules. Rules and dates change, so check them with the official sources before you rely on them: ADA.gov (the US Department of Justice), the W3C's WCAG pages and Section508.gov. PageKiwi helps you find problems and get closer to meeting the rules. It can't promise a website meets them, it isn't legal advice, and we can't take responsibility for decisions made from it.
What it is
Sighted visitors see a little picture and know what it means. A screen reader needs words, and an icon link often has none. So it says "link", or reads out the web address. Voice control users can't say its name to click it either. The usual suspects:
- Social media icons (Facebook, X, Instagram, YouTube) in the header or footer.
- An envelope icon for email, or a phone icon for calling.
- A magnifying glass for search, or three lines for the menu (those are often buttons, with the same problem).
- The logo, linked to the home page, with no alt text.
- A picture in a post that links somewhere, with no alt text.
Good words say where the link goes: "Facebook", "Email the town office", "Search", "Home". Not "icon", "facebook-logo.svg" or "click".
Fix the ones in your posts and pages (WordPress)
- A linked picture: click the picture, and in Alternative text write where the link goes, such as "Fall festival photo gallery". For a linked picture, the alt text is the link's name. Alt text in WordPress has the steps.
- The Social Icons block: WordPress names each icon after its service ("Facebook") for screen readers by itself. To change the name, click the icon and fill in Text in its settings. To show the names on screen too, click the whole Social Icons block and turn on Show text. Visible words help everyone: not everyone knows every icon.
- An icon added some other way (pasted code, a page builder's icon box): look in its settings for a label, title or text box. If there isn't one, ask your web person.
In the header or footer? That's usually the theme
Icons that appear on every page usually come from your theme or a plugin, not from anything you typed. If your site's header or footer is built from blocks (in Appearance, then Editor), the Social Icons steps above may work there too. Otherwise it's a small code change for your web person: each icon link needs a name, either visible words or a hidden label (called aria-label). Send them this.
Send this to your web person
Not sure what to say? Copy this into an email, add your website's address, and send it.
Hi, Some links on our website, [your website address], are just icons with no words behind them, so a screen reader says only "link": [for example, the Facebook and email icons in the footer]. Could you give each icon link a name that says where it goes, such as "Facebook" or "Email the town office"? Visible text is best; otherwise an aria-label on the link, with the icon itself hidden from screen readers (aria-hidden="true") so it isn't read twice. The same goes for any icon-only buttons, such as search or the menu. PageKiwi's Accessibility Check (pagekiwi.com/access-check/) lists these as "Link with no words" and "Button with no words". Thanks
Find them
- Accessibility Check reads one page of your live site, header and footer included, and reports links and buttons with no words, showing where the first one is and how many there are. Check your home page first: the header and footer are on every page.
- PageKiwi for WordPress, our free plugin, finds links with no words inside your published posts and pages, with a link to each so you can fix it. It doesn't look at the theme's header and footer.
Links with names are part of making your website accessible. Website accessibility: where to start, with the tools that help and what the law asks.