New Google Jump to Links – Links to Named Anchors within Page Descriptions on Google

One of the most significant changes to Google’s algorithms this year saw the introduction of “Rich Snippets” to the search engines results pages (SERPs). Launched on August the 19^th 2009, the new changes provided us with enriched search listings similar to the following image:

However Google has recently started showing “Jump to” links placed within SERP results (shown below) or see it for yourself when searching for “what is LVR?” in Google.

The links themselves are actually named anchor links, which are designed for webmasters to point users to parts of a web page that may otherwise take long period of time to scroll to. They are known as “Jump to” links and will only be displayed provided the text within the named anchor is applicable to the users search query. If the no applicable named anchor is available to Google then standard meta description or the search engine description will be displayed.

Google recently posted about “jump to” named anchor links on their webmaster central blog, here is what they had to say bout them:

“We generate these deep links completely algorithmically, based on page structure, so they could be displayed for any site (and of course money isn’t involved in any way, so you can’t pay to get these links). There are a few things you can do to increase the chances that they might appear on your pages. First, ensure that long, multi-topic pages on your site are well-structured and broken into distinct logical sections. Second, ensure that each section has an associated anchor with a descriptive name (i.e., not just “Section 2.1″), and that your page includes a “table of contents” which links to the individual anchors. The new in-snippet links only appear for relevant queries, so you won’t see it on the results all the time — only when we think that a link to a section would be highly useful for a particular query.

Posted by Raj Krishnan, Snippets Team”

So, although “Jump to” links may not have any direct advantage for SEO, they will improve click through rates on search engine results pages and in turn the usability of a web page. This is a prime example of Google acknowledging websites that have taken usability into account when producing lengthy content. When using named anchors ensure you take into consideration the user and the type of query string they will be searching for when looking information based on your content.