When using empty URL fragment links, to send a user to the top of the page (e.g. <a href=#>return to top</a>), are these links considered broken or invalid? One of my tools is returning them all as broken links.
Is link a broken link?
html;links;validation
Technically, # is a well-defined URL reference that points to the start of the current document, so it is not broken in formal sense. It can, however, be regarded as bad for accessibility, and it is also a common symptom of fake links, i.e. a elements that are supposed to link to something external but depend on JavaScript. (In the very old days, <a href=... onclick=...> was the only kind of element that supported  the onclick attribute, so people wrote the dummy href=# attribute, which isnt really dummy.)So you can regard this as an incorrect error message, or as a useful warning message that might be a little poorly formulated.