How Jump Links, Named Anchors, Within-Page Links Are Used By Google
You may already know that “internal hyperlinks” are good for Search Engine Optimisation (SEO).
- Definition for “Internal Hyperlinks“: Linking from one webpage on your website to another
When your webpage is quite long, it can be useful to provide “jump-to” links a.k.a. “named anchors”, or “within-page links”, to help users jump down the page to the section that is of interest to them.
This technique is often used on FAQ pages (Frequently Asked Questions), like this.
Today, for the first time, I saw these named anchors appearing in Google’s Search Engine Results for one of my websites:
Interestingly, Jacob Nielson (web usability guru, who I follow very closely), advises not to use “within-page links” because users expect hyperlinks to go to a different webpage and they can be disorientating.
But I think if you put a small heading like “On this page:” above the list, and wrap a border around the list to distinguish it from your content, I think they are usable.
Give it a try.