Using Named Anchors for user/search engine benefits

In one of their latest additions, Google added support for Named Anchors in search engine result pages. Suppose I make a search for ‘about dogs’ keyword on Google, here is a live example of Google using named anchors in their search result snippets:

What are Named Anchors?

As all of know a hyperlink is a link to an address on the internet. And <a> tag has an href attribute that defines the location of a website or page on internet. With href, tag has one more attribute that’s name attribute. Named anchors are hidden from your website readers. Here is syntax for named anchors:

<a name=”label”>Any content</a>
And link syntax to this named Anchor will be:
<a href=”#label”>Any content</a>

And if you still have doubts about using named Anchors and Anchor tag other attributes and how to use them please check this page from W3Schools.com website.

I think website owners and bloggers now can use named anchors to get better rankings in search engine results especially on Google and its good from user prospective as well. Using Named Anchor feature in our blog posts and articles will enable us to put a ‘Table of Content’ section on our pages which will give a brief idea about the topic which will be covered on that page. So we would not need to read all content available on a page to see some specific part of information we may be looking for on a page.

Adding Named Anchors on a Website/Blog

Wordpress current versions don’t have support for Named Anchors in visual editors. So you have to create HTML code to use them in your website or blog contents. After going through this latest addition from Google, I tried adding named anchors to one of my earlier posts on this blog using Wordpress CMS, which talks about Adding paypal donate button to Wordpress blogger free blogs.

For Link to Named Anchors:

<strong>Table of contents</strong>

<a href=”#paypal_donate_button”>Adding a Paypal Donation Button</a>
<a href=”#blogger_free_blogs”>Add Donate button into Blogger Free Blogs</a>
<a href=”#wordpress_blogs”>Add Paypal button into Wordpress blogs</a>

And for Creating Named Anchors use:

<a name=”paypal_donate_button”></a>
<a name=”blogger_free_blogs”></a>
<a name=”wordpress_blogs”></a>

So after adding Named Anchors in top section of a page gives us a hint about the topics that are covered on that page. If I want to know how to add Paypal button to a Wordpress blog, can directly switch to that section by clicking through the link available in “Table of content” section on that page. So I don’t need to read all information available on that page to find specific information I was looking for on that particular page.

Related posts:

1. Internal Link Building for Higher Search Engine Rankings Page Rank
2. Google webmaster tool benefits for webmasters
3. Optimizing Wordpress blogs from Seo/User prospective
4. Include you blog in Google blog search within two minutes time
5. Adding Paypal donate button to wordpress blogger blog

Tags: Google update, named anchors, wordpress blogs