How it works
The benchmark is the W3C’s Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG), currently at version 2.2. They are built around four principles – perceivable, operable, understandable and robust – and three conformance levels, A, AA and AAA. Level AA is what laws usually require, often through the European standard EN 301 549, which currently references WCAG 2.1.
Typical requirements: images need alt text, text needs enough contrast (4.5:1 for body text), form fields and buttons need labels, everything has to work with a keyboard, and the page language must be declared in the markup.
Since June 28, 2025, the European Accessibility Act (EAA) applies across the EU; Germany implements it as the BFSG. It covers certain consumer products and services, including e-commerce such as online shops and booking flows. Microenterprises with fewer than ten employees and no more than €2 million in annual turnover or balance sheet total are exempt as service providers, and public sector sites follow their own rules.
Why it matters
For people with disabilities, a page with serious barriers is simply unusable: an unnamed button is silent in a screen reader, an unlabeled form cannot be filled in, and a menu without keyboard support cannot be reached. The same goes for many older users and anyone who only has one hand free.
If a service falls under the EAA, market surveillance authorities can demand fixes, and in Germany competitors or associations may also send warning letters. Whether and how a specific client is affected is a legal question that DomainWarn does not answer.
How to prevent it
- Build accessibility into the design and theme from the start: sufficient contrast, a visible focus state and a clean heading structure.
- Maintain alt text for images and labels for every form field and icon button directly in the CMS.
- Navigate every key page once using only the keyboard, and spot-check with a screen reader such as NVDA or VoiceOver.
- Run automated checks regularly so new barriers from updates or editorial content show up quickly.
- For services covered by the EAA, add a manual audit and the required accessibility information.
How DomainWarn detects it
The Accessibility check loads the homepage daily in a real browser and tests it with axe-core against the automatically testable rules of WCAG 2.0 through 2.2 at levels A and AA. Critical and serious barriers are warnings, moderate and minor ones informational notes; every finding names the rule, the WCAG criterion, the number of affected elements and an example. There is deliberately no incident: a new serious barrier shows up as a change in the timeline.
An automated test only catches some barriers; whether alt text makes sense or a flow is understandable takes a human to judge. The monitor is included in Agency Pro and the trial and is switched on per domain, and the free Accessibility Checker tests individual pages for everyone.
DomainWarn checks this for all your domains on a schedule and alerts you when something is missing or changes.