How To Enable Google Section or Jump To LinksGoogle announced snippet links on the official Google blog last month. Wondering what a Google Snippet link looks like? Here is a sample snippet code. These are also known as Google ‘Jump to’ Tags.

The algorithm used by Google to determine how it will display these section links is based on page structure as mentioned on the official Google Blog.

Raj Krishnan from the Google Snippets team made this quote:

“ 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

How to get ‘Jump Tags’ to show up on your website

If you want these “Jump to”  tags to show up, you can perform the following steps on your webpage. These steps do not guarantee that the “Google Jump to” tags will show up, but it sure won’t hurt.

Work on the page structure

Well thought out page structure is the first place to get started. If your webpage has a lot of content, consider breaking longer pages into logical sections.

Use a Table of Content towards the top of the page.

Use a table of contents to section large chunks of content into manageable chunks. It also provides a visual flow for your webpage.

Name your sections with keywords, instead of naming them randomly

For example instead of naming a section “Top Tip #1” use something like “Social Media Traffic Tips”.

Segregate Data into sections

You can segregate your data into sections using the “Div” tag, or the “Span” tag. Remember to name each section with a keyword rich name.

Here is an example on how how it’s been used. Notice that the “id” attribute has been used to identify this section. Also, the keyword ”GVI format and Conversion” has been used as the “id”.content

 Div tag has an attribute called “title” which can also be used in a similar fashion.

Do not be frustrated if after performing all this and uploading your files nothing happens with your ‘jump to’ links. Raj Krishnan from the Google snippets team has mentioned: “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.”

I queried Google with the keyword “google video”. The search results consisted of a link to the same webpage on wikipedia, but this time there were no “Jump to” tags. Why? I scanned through the Table of Contents and noticed there was no link item for the keyword “google video”.

Case Study of Google Section Links

Let us look at an example of a website which displays section links very prominently in the Google search. Go to www.google.com and search for “gvi format and conversion”.

If you take a look at the results you will notice that wikipedia website shows up as one of the results. At the point of writing this article, a ‘Jump to’ link was shown for this particular website. Look at the very handy and eye catching ‘Jump to’ or section link. Let’s click on this link and see what happens next.

google video

Towards the top of the page of the page you will find a Table of Contents:

Table

Lets take a look at what the source code for “GVI format and conversion” looks like.

 

TOC

It is an anchor link or a bookmark to a section of the webpage named “GVI format and conversion”. I went ahead and clicked on this link and it jumped to a section of the content area. Taking a look at the source code here is what I find.

content

If you notice wikipedia has used a span tag <span class=”mv-headline”>. The id associated with the tag is “GVI format and conversion”. This is our keyword.

This is a wonderful example of how ‘Google Jump’ to tags are displaying for relevant terms in Google. These ‘Jump to’ tags are very visible and increases the click through rate. Who wouldn’t click on a link which says it can give you the exact content we are looking for?

Welcome to Google Section Links!

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