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WCAG Failures and Problematic ARIA Use on GoDaddy Airo Sites

ByRenee Dunn Reading Time: 4 minutes

AI is quickly becoming a major player in the website-building world. But can AI-generated websites meet the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG), which are required by most digital accessibility laws today? I recently evaluated several websites built using GoDaddy Airo to find out—and the results were concerning.

While accessibility is determined by a combination of design, content, and code, I focused my review solely on the underlying code, since it’s typically not something users can modify after the site is built.

What Is GoDaddy Airo?

GoDaddy Airo is an AI-powered tool offered to customers who register a new domain with GoDaddy. According to their marketing, Airo helps you create a free website “ready in seconds.” Just provide some information about your business, and Airo will generate a logo, write content, and build a complete website.

For people without technical skills, this sounds like an appealing solution. But as with many things that promise to be a fast and easy solution to something complex, the results often falls short—especially when it comes to accessibility.

Major WCAG Failures on Airo Sites

I looked at multiple websites displaying the “Powered by GoDaddy Airo” badge and quickly found several serious accessibility issues. These would be marked as Critical or High severity in a WCAG audit and could significantly impact users who rely on assistive technologies.

1. Missing or Incorrect Landmarks

Landmarks are areas of your webpage that communicate structure using semantic HTML tags or the equivalent ARIA role attributes.  These landmarks help screen reader users navigate a page efficiently. Common landmarks include:

  • Banner – the top section of the site, defined by using <header> or role=”banner”, which should not be nested inside any other landmark
  • Navigation – menus or site navigation, defined by using <nav> or role=”navigation”
  • Main – the main content area, defined by using <main> or role=”main”, which should not be nested inside any other landmark
  • Complementary – sidebars or related content, defined by using <aside> or role=”complementary”
  • Contentinfo – the footer, defined by using <footer> or role=”contentinfo”

Under WCAG 1.3.1: Info and Relationships, landmarks must be used correctly to convey page structure. On Airo-built sites, I found missing banner landmarks, banner landmarks incorrectly nested inside main landmarks, main landmarks that don’t include the full main content of the page, and key page content divided between generic “region” landmarks that lacked required labels.

2. No “Skip to Content” Link

WCAG 2.4.1: Bypass Blocks requires a way for users to skip over repeated elements like navigation. This is usually done with a “Skip to Content” link. None of the Airo sites I reviewed had this feature—and even if they did, the landmark errors described above would prevent it from working properly.

3. Unclear Link Purpose

WCAG 2.4.4: Link Purpose (In Context) requires that the purpose of each link is clear from the link text alone.

All Airo sites have a “Powered by Airo” logo in the footer linking to GoDaddy’s website. However, this is implemented with an SVG image that lacks both alt text and an ARIA label. As a result, screen reader users have no way to understand what the link does or where it goes.

4. Poor Labeling of Required Fields

Forms on Airo websites often mark required fields with an asterisk (*)—but there’s no explanation that the asterisk means “required.” Worse, the HTML doesn’t indicate the field is required in a way that assistive technologies can recognize.

This violates WCAG 3.3.2 Label and Instructions and 1.3.1 Info and Relationships, making it hard for screen reader users to complete the form without error.

5. Misuse of ARIA for Links That Open in New Windows

Opening links in a new window is common, but users should be warned before it happens. Under WCAG 3.2.2: On Input, it’s recommended (though not required) to alert users in advance of this behavior. This can be done with an icon, visible text, or an aria-label that says the link opens in a new window.

Airo sites don’t do this. Instead, they misuse aria-haspopup=”true”, which is meant to indicate that interacting with the element will launch a popup, modal, or dialog overtop of the main content in the current window, not that it will open a full page in a new tab. Even worse, this attribute is applied inconsistently, with some external links using it and others not, creating additional confusion. This violates WCAG 4.1.2: Name, Role, Value, which requires that roles and properties accurately reflect behavior.

Final Thoughts

Using AI to build a website might save you time upfront, but it could cost you later. Accessible websites require thoughtful design, properly structured content, and clean, semantic code. If your business is subject to specific laws that require WCAG conformance or you’re concerned about the legal risks of a non-compliant website, Airo’s current output fails to meet that standard.