Link Purpose (Link Only)
A mechanism is available to allow the purpose of each link to be identified from link text alone, except where the purpose of the link would be ambiguous to users in general.
In plain language
A link's text alone (without needing any surrounding sentence or paragraph) should make it clear where it leads.
Why it matters
Screen reader users often pull up a list of just the links on a page, completely separate from their surrounding text. If the link text alone is vague ("click here," "more"), that list becomes useless — they can't tell any of the links apart.
In practice
Fails this criterion
A page has an icon-only link with no accessible text describing where it goes — a screen reader just announces "link, image" with no destination info.
Meets this criterion
The same link includes descriptive text like "Read our privacy policy," so its purpose is completely clear from the link text alone, without needing to read anything else.
Test it yourself
Pull up a list of every link on a page (many screen readers or browser extensions can do this) and read only the link text, ignoring everything else. Can you tell exactly where each one goes?