MAKE LINKS CONCISE, DESCRIPTIVE, AND STANDALONE

Hyperlinks are a major part of how people use web content. Sighted users often scan a page for hyperlinks, while users of screen readers may touch a button to hear a list of all links on the page.

The core of an accessible hyperlink is the anchor text. Anchor text is the clickable text that forms the hyperlink. To make your links accessible, your anchor text should be:

Concise: Don't link your entire sentence. Instead, choose the most relevant phrase, paying particular attention to the next two points.
Descriptive: The best anchor text is descriptive of what the user will be visiting if they follow the link. Users should not be confused when they follow a link.
Standalone: While most sighted users will encounter a link in the context of its surrounding text, screen reader users may not. Screen readers give access to a full list of links on a page, so using anchor text that is meaningful out-of-context makes a big difference to some users.

TIP

Write as you normally would, then go back and add hyperlinks later! This will ensure your links fit naturally into your text content.

COMMON HYPERLINK PITFALLS

When linking in your content, make sure you don't fall into these common traps:

Do not use phrases such as "Click here" or "Follow this link" as your link anchor text. These are not descriptive, and they can confuse or delay users of assistive technologies. You may use "Click here" or "Follow this link" outside of the anchor text.
Do not copy and paste an entire URL into the body of your content. This is a good hyperlink to Google. This is a bad one: https://www.google.com/
Do not underline content that isn't a hyperlink. This can confuse users, as we've all learned that underlined text = hyperlink.
Do not create hyperlinks every time you mention something. For instance, while you could link Google the first time you mention it, don't continue to link it on every mention.

The Canvas accessibility checker will only flag for the last of those pitfalls, so make sure to manually check your hyperlinks, especially for URLs placed directly into the text.

VALIDATE HYPERLINKS IN CANVAS

Canvas includes a tool to quickly validate all hyperlinks in your course site. When you open Settings from the left sidebar of your Canvas course, you'll see a right sidebar menu. At the bottom of that menu is an option to Validate Links in Content.

Selecting this option will bring up a page with a button to Start Link Validation. Once you click this button, it may take a while for the validator to run, so don't worry if it says Loading for a while.

After the validation process has completed, you'll be provided with a list of broken links. By default this includes unpublished content, but you can uncheck that box if you have a lot of content that isn't published yet.

Quick Recap

Create hyperlinks using concise, descriptive text that is meaningful outside the context of the sentence.

Further Reading