GoogleChrome / GoogleChrome/lighthouse

Erroneous "Identical links have the same purpose." warning

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bug
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Description

### FAQ

- [x] Yes, my issue is not about [variability](https://github.com/GoogleChrome/lighthouse/blob/main/docs/variability.md) or [throttling](https://github.com/GoogleChrome/lighthouse/blob/main/docs/throttling.md).
- [x] Yes, my issue is not about a specific accessibility audit (file with [axe-core](https://github.com/dequelabs/axe-core) instead).
- [x] Yes, my issue is not answered by [other FAQs](https://github.com/GoogleChrome/lighthouse#faq).

### URL

https://online-escape-room.com/

### What happened?

Got the warning "Identical links have the same purpose." and then "Links with the same destination should have the same description, to help users understand the link's purpose and decide whether to follow it."

Opening the dropdown shows that they are two *different* stripe checkout links. They are long links that differ by only one character. But they are fundamentally different links to different checkout pages to different products, so it is an error to consider them identical when they are merely very similar in terms of the address they point to.

The links are:

https://buy.stripe.com/bJeaEX4VdeuIczC1NrgA808
https://buy.stripe.com/bJeaEX4VdeuIczC1NrgA809

(different only in the final character, but they link to totally different products)

### What did you expect?

No warning, because the links have different destinations.

### What have you tried?

_No response_

### How were you running Lighthouse?

web.dev, PageSpeed Insights

### Lighthouse Version

Can't see it easily - make it more obvious if you're gonna ask for it and require it

### Chrome Version

_No response_

### Node Version

_No response_

### OS

_No response_

### Relevant log output

```sh

```

Contributor guide

Open the contributing guide

Research direction

Reproduce the warning for the online-escape-room.com URL in web.dev or PageSpeed Insights, using the two Stripe destinations given in the report. Trace the Lighthouse accessibility audit and its axe-core integration to see why URLs differing in the final character are treated as identical. Done means genuinely different destinations no longer trigger the warning, with a regression test covering this case.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
javascript
Domain
accessibility
Issue type
Bug
Difficulty
4/5
Estimated time
3-5 days
Activity status
Stale
Clarity
Mostly clear
Newbie friendliness
35/100

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