A
Accessibility overlay An accessibility overlay is software added to a website through a one-line third-party script that, after the page loads, aims to cover up accessibility problems either with a user toolbar or by trying to repair the code automatically. Accessibility
Accessibility statement An accessibility statement is the text in which an organization publicly discloses, for its website or mobile app, the accessibility standard it follows, its conformance status, the content that is not accessible and the way users can report problems. Accessibility
What is Accessibility statement?
An accessibility statement is the text in which an organization publicly discloses, for its website or mobile app, the accessibility standard it follows, its conformance status, the content that is not accessible and the way users can report problems.
A statement is not a certificate; it is a summary of the organization’s own assessment. Its value depends on the honesty of the assessment behind it: a statement that does not say by what method, on what date and for what scope the assessment was made cannot be verified. That is why a statement is written after the audit, not before; the measurements that go into it are the output of a web accessibility audit.
Where it is mandatory depends on the regulation:
- EU public sector — mandatory for the websites and apps of public bodies; in 2018 the Commission published a model accessibility statement. The model defines three conformance statuses: fully compliant, partially compliant, not compliant.
- European Accessibility Act — requires companies offering services to consumers to publish information on how the service meets the accessibility requirements in their general terms and conditions or an equivalent document; its function is close to that of a statement.
- Turkey — Presidential Circular No. 2025/10 requires websites to be brought into line with a checklist; it does not require publishing a statement. The right granted at the end of monitoring is a separate matter: the accessibility logo.
- Everyone else — the W3C recommends a statement for every organization, even where it is not mandatory.
According to the W3C, the minimum content is three things: a commitment to accessibility, the standard applied, and contact details for users who run into problems. Recommended additional content is known limitations, measures taken, technical prerequisites, tested environments and relevant legislation. Both the W3C and the EU model ask for the statement to be written in non-technical language that describes the problem the user will encounter.
The most common mistake is a conformance claim with no assessment behind it. The EU model accepts “fully compliant” only if all requirements of the standard are met without exception, and in that case recommends linking to the assessment report. That is why this site’s sample statement makes no claim and only states its method: every release passes an automated audit (axe) and a suite of 1462 tests before going live; the focus ring is measured at 2 pixels and touch targets at a minimum of 44 pixels.
A statement should be thought of as an annual document: the EU model recommends reviewing the accuracy of its claims at least once a year and updating the statement with a new assessment after a major revision of the site. It also asks for the statement to be reachable from every page of the site, for example via a fixed link in the footer. Section-by-section writing and a complete example prepared with this site’s situation are in the how to write an accessibility statement guide; the accessibility statement generator, which fills in the sections and produces the text, runs in the browser.
If you want to know whether your site meets these criteria, the web accessibility audit measures every template against WCAG 2.2 point by point, fixes problems at the source and documents the result.
Accessibility
Accessibility tree The accessibility tree is the structure a browser derives from a page and presents to assistive technology; it is the page a screen reader sees. Accessibility
Accessible name The accessible name is the name of an interface element as read by assistive technology, and it can differ from the text shown on screen. Accessibility
AEO (Answer Engine Optimization) is the practice of getting content selected as the unit that answers a question directly. Answer engines
AI Overviews is the AI-generated summary Google shows above the search results page, synthesised from more than one source. Answer engines
ARIA (Accessible Rich Internet Applications) is a set of attributes used to convey role, state and property information to assistive technology where HTML cannot express it on its own. Accessibility
B
Brand mention A brand mention is a brand’s name being named without a link, and in the era of answer engines it is a visibility signal independent of links. Answer engines
C
Cache header A cache header is the server response header that tells the browser how long a resource may be stored and how it is to be revalidated. Performance
Canonical address A canonical address is the markup declaring which page is the original when the same or very similar content is reachable from more than one address. Multilingual
Citation A citation is an answer engine mentioning a source in the answer it produces, usually with a link to it. Answer engines
CLS (Cumulative Layout Shift) measures how much content shifts unexpectedly while a page is loading or in use, and Google counts anything under 0.1 as good. Performance
Colour blindness is the inability to tell certain colours apart, and it affects a considerable share of the world’s population, men in particular. Accessibility
Compression is the shrinking of text-based resources before they are sent from the server and their expansion in the browser. Performance
Core Web Vitals is the collective name for the three metrics Google defined to measure a page’s real user experience. Performance
Country domain (ccTLD) A country domain is a two-letter top-level domain extension allocated to a particular country. Multilingual
Crawl budget is the number of requests a search engine allocates to fetching from a site within a given period. Answer engines
Critical rendering path The critical rendering path is the minimum sequence of steps a browser must complete before it can draw a page on screen. Performance
E
EN 301 549 (Accessibility requirements for ICT products and services) is the European standard, published jointly by CEN, CENELEC and ETSI, that defines the accessibility requirements for information and communication technology products and services and how they are to be tested. Accessibility
Entity An entity means a distinct thing that search and answer engines recognise — a person, an organisation, a place, a product or a concept. Answer engines
F
Field data is the sum of performance measurements experienced by real users on real devices and real networks. Performance
Focus trap A focus trap is when keyboard focus enters a region and cannot leave it again, and WCAG prohibits it explicitly at level A. Accessibility
Font subset A font subset is a font file regenerated with only the characters that are needed. Multilingual
G
GEO (Generative Engine Optimization) is the work of increasing the likelihood that a site is chosen as a source in the answers generated by AI systems. Answer engines
H
hreflang is the markup that declares a page’s different language and region versions to search engines. Multilingual
I
Index (search index) The index is the database in which a search engine keeps the pages it has decided to store out of those it crawled, and the only place it selects search results from; it is also called the search index. Being found on Google
IndexNow is an open protocol that tells search engines immediately that a page has changed. Answer engines
INP (Interaction to Next Paint) is the time from a user interaction until the page responds visually, and Google counts anything under 200 milliseconds as good. Performance
J
JSON-LD (JavaScript Object Notation for Linked Data) is a structured data format that declares a page’s meaning in a machine-readable form without changing the page’s appearance at all. Answer engines
L
Language tag (BCP 47) A language tag is the standard coding form that tells machines which language a text is in. Multilingual
LCP (Largest Contentful Paint) is the paint time of the largest content element in a page’s visible area, and Google counts anything under 2.5 seconds as good. Performance
Live region A live region is an area of a page whose changes a screen reader has to announce to the user. Accessibility
llms.txt is an optional file placed in a website’s root directory that summarises, in Markdown, what the site is about and where its most important pages are for language models. Answer engines
Locale A locale is the setting that defines a user’s language and region together and determines the formatting rules. Multilingual
Localisation (Localization) is adapting content to the culture, habits and search language of a target market; it is a wider undertaking than translation. Multilingual
N
noindex is a directive asking that a page not be added to a search engine’s index, given either with the robots meta tag inside the page or with the server’s X-Robots-Tag response header. Being found on Google
R
Redirect chain A redirect chain is when an address reaches its final address not in a single hop but by passing through more than one redirect; for example, if an old address is redirected first to an intermediate address and from there to the final address, there is a two-hop chain. Site migration
Reflow A reflow is the browser recomputing the positions and sizes of elements on a page after a change. Performance
Relative luminance is the value expressing a colour’s perceived lightness between 0 and 1, and it is the basis of the contrast ratio calculation. Accessibility
S
Screen reader A screen reader is assistive technology that turns on-screen content into speech or braille output and lets the user navigate by keyboard. Accessibility
Search Console is a free service from Google for monitoring a site’s status in Google Search and for seeing and fixing its problems. Being found on Google
Semantic HTML means choosing each element for its meaning rather than its appearance — a heading element for a heading, a button element for a button, a list element for a list. Accessibility
Sitemap A sitemap is a file, usually written in XML, that lists the addresses of a site’s pages and, optionally, their last modification dates for search engines in a single file. Being found on Google
Soft 404 A soft 404 is a page that shows visitors “page not found” or empty content but returns a 200 (success) code from the server instead of an error code; Google treats these pages as error pages and does not index them. Site migration
Structured data is an additional layer that labels a page’s content with a standard vocabulary machines can understand. Answer engines
T
Text expansion is the same content being of different lengths in different languages, and the layout having to flex accordingly. Multilingual
Translation memory A translation memory is a database that stores previously translated sentences and suggests them when the same or a similar sentence comes up again. Multilingual
TTFB (Time to First Byte) is the time between the browser sending a request and receiving the first byte from the server. Performance
U
URL inventory A URL inventory is a single list that gathers every address of a site that search engines know — current pages, address variants and old addresses; in a site redesign or migration, the redirect map is derived from this list. Site migration
W
WCAG (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines) is the international standard published by the W3C that defines the accessibility of web content through testable success criteria. Accessibility
X
x-default is a special hreflang value declaring the default page to show when no language version matches the user’s language. Multilingual