Has a link with whitespace in href attribute
This means that the URL in question contains at least one outgoing anchor link which has trailing or leading whitespace character in the href attribute.
Why is this important?
Leading or trailing whitespace in an href attribute is typically a CMS or user error. However, since they will usually get trimmed by browsers, they can be hard to spot.
Whitespace in href attributes may cause a loss or dissipation of link equity, if search engines treat the link targets as distinct URLs.
What does the Hint check?
This Hint will trigger for any internal URL which contains at least one outgoing anchor link with whitespace in the href attribute.
Examples that trigger this Hint:
Any of the example links below would trigger the Hint.
An anchor with href with leading space
An anchor with href with trailing space
An anchor with href with leading space using single quotes
An anchor with href with trailing space using single quotes
How do you resolve this issue?
Identify the anchors which have whitespace in the href attribute, and correct each one on a case-by-case basis - which may require reviewing the code that generates the links.
Depending on the specific issue, you may be able to fix a number of pages at once, if the problematic link is used in a template for lots of pages on the website.
How do you get more data from Sitebulb?
From the URL List, click the blue Hint Details button, which will bring up a slide-across window with specific details about the Hint for each URL.
This will show you any outgoing anchor links with whitespace in href attributes, highlighted in red in the HTML. The right-hand scrollbar will show you the area to scroll down to, and then once you have scrolled you will see the highlighted link in red.
