Meaningful Link Text
A link’s text should always describe the content a website visitor will receive when they click on it. Good linking makes a page more friendly for website visitors and search engines.
Links with the same destination URL should use the same link text, while links to different URLs should have different link text.
For example, Academics is a link included within the main footer of every montclair.edu page that links to the main landing page for the Academics section of the Montclair State University website.
If your page content includes a link to the same landing page, the link text should be Academics.
If your page content includes links to other academics-related pages, the link text should not be Academics.
Examples of Good Link Text
- For more information, review the Graduate School Admissions Checklist.
- The General Education Requirements can vary among students in different programs or matriculation years.
- The Department of Computer Science offers two programs as minors:
Examples of Bad Link Text
- Click here to see the Graduate School Admissions Checklist.
- View the Graduate School Admissions Checklist here.
- View the Graduate School Admissions Checklist at: http://montclair.edu/graduate/admissions-checklist.pdf
Hidden Text for Accessibility
The University’s stylesheet has a class defined that allows you to create off-screen text. This text will be read aloud to visitors who use screen readers. This can be very handy if you have links immediately under headings that would be very redundant if you included the full context. For example:
BS in Biology
MS in Biology
<h3>BS in Biology</h3> [button]<a href="https://www.montclair.edu/admissions/">Apply Now<span class="a11y-label"> for BS in Biology</span></a>[/button] [button]<a href="http://catalog.montclair.edu/programs/biology-bs/">View Requirements<span class="a11y-label"> for BS in Biology</span></a>[/button] <h3>MS in Biology</h3> [button]<a href="http://www.montclair.edu/graduate/">Apply Now<span class="a11y-label"> for MS in Biology</span></a>[/button] [button]<a href="http://catalog.montclair.edu/programs/biology-ms/">View Requirements<span class="a11y-label"> for MS in Biology</span></a>[/button]
When to Open in a New Tab
Linking to other montclair.edu pages
- Avoid absolute URLs to content on montclair.edu. URLs that begin with “http://” or “https://” are absolute URLs. By using an absolute URL, you choose for the user whether they’re going to get an unencrypted page (http) or an encrypted page (https). It’s best to allow visitors to choose and to honor that choice. When you link to another page on the Montclair State website, try to make sure you use a root-relative URL instead. For example, instead of http://www.montclair.edu/admissions use /admissions.
- Linked montclair.edu content should generally open within the same tab. This replaces the current page’s content with the new linked page’s content. To do this, when linking to another page on the Montclair State University website, make sure target is not set.
Linking to pages on websites other than montclair.edu
- Linked external content should open in a new tab. When linking to another website, set the link’s target attribute to _blank – this will open the link in a new tab. This helps communicate to users that they’ve left the Montclair State website.
Note: For the purposes of this document, “another website” is anything not on montclair.edu. Conversely, anything on montclair.edu is considered the “Montclair State website” or “our site.” In general, you should not expect a visitor to make significant distinctions between one department’s site and another department’s site – to them it’s all the Montclair State website.
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