anchors

[JockAuthor]

Something that is simple i know but often confuses me somewhat.


#american_lawyer
#american lawyer
#americanlawyer
#AmericanLawyer

When doing anchors, this has confused me over and over, what's the best for seo?

[WebEminence]

Not sure it matters a whole lot but I would lean towards separating words with an _ or -

[JockAuthor]

normally if here is a space between the words a % appears, does this affect the seo of the site in any way.

[Stevie D]

normally if here is a space between the words a % appears, does this affect the seo of the site in any way.

It's best to avoid spaces in filenames. They can be simulated with %20, but it's a really bad idea to use them. If you're using id="..." to give the anchor point then it can't contain a space anyway. Back in the bad old days when I used to use <a name="...">, you could get away with including spaces but nobody does that any more, do they? Also remember that IDs are case sensitive, so #americanlawyer is not the same as #AmericanLawyer. For the sake of your own sanity, I would generally recommend always using all lower case – the minute you introduce capital letters, you're likely to confuse yourself and make a mistake.

As to whether it matters for SEO, the answer is "no", not a tiny bit. Google is extremely clever and is easily able to distinguish words that have been concatenated, so it will have no trouble seeing that #americanlawyer is made up of the words 'american' and 'lawyer'. Of course, standard advice about the Pen Island Problem applies here

Although to be honest, I've no idea if Google pays any attention at all to ID labels and anchor names on in-page links.

[JockAuthor]

This is a most excellent reply and has now answered one of those age old questions that have baffled us. Who knows what google does and how the SE sees the words. I will er on the side of caution and ensure that i use only lower case with no spaces for the anchors. If these are key words too, i suspect it would not make much difference.

[JockAuthor]

Another thing Stevie is that of your anchors in your content contain relevant keywords (longtail) without spaces and in small case. Will this help to rank the site higher in the SE. I understand of course that many other factors exist.

[ozsubasi]

I'm not understanding something here! Anchor as in text that is used within page content to anchor a link? So if I'm writing and in the content I have the words American lawyer I would link them just as they are, with a capital 'A' and a space, to wherever I wanted to link them. What I missing from your conversation please?

[Stevie D]

I'm not understanding something here! Anchor as in text that is used within page content to anchor a link? So if I'm writing and in the content I have the words American lawyer I would link them just as they are, with a capital 'A' and a space, to wherever I wanted to link them. What I missing from your conversation please?

If I've understood him right, Jock is talking about when you want to link to a specific point in a page (which you would do with an ID). So you might have <a href="professionals.htm#americanlawyer">, for example.

[revium]

Google ignores anchors in the URL, so do not worry about it.

http://www.google.com/support/forum/...4e2d39b2&hl=en

Google does NOT index the #nnnn part of a URL!

[ozsubasi]

If I've understood him right, Jock is talking about when you want to link to a specific point in a page (which you would do with an ID). So you might have <a href="professionals.htm#americanlawyer">, for example.

Thanks very much for that, it isn't something I do and I missed the significance of the #