Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
#hashtag Anchor text within content
-
Hi, i have a question about anchor text within my sites content.
It 'jumps' to content displayed further down the page via a side navigation at the top. These links don't take you away to any other page, instead take you further down the page to the relavent content.
My question is this: I've noticed in the URL that the anchor text - #jumpnavlink is placed at the end of the pages URL like so..
www.mywebsite.com/example-page.php#jumpnavlink
Is this creating a problem for duplicate content?
Is it creating a new URL for viewers to use?
Is it ok to have lots of these running throughout my sites content pages?Many thanks for any light that is shed on this one!
Cheers
Alex -
Hi Alex,
Matt is absolutely right - engines ignore everything to the right of the hash (properly called a "named anchor" or "URL fragment").
They ignore fragments for the reason you just described. Fragments have traditionally been used in web design to build "table of contents" navigation that drops a user down the page to a specific position on the page, whether a different section, or a specific user's comment, etc. If a page has 10 sections with 10 corresponding fragments, obviously the engine just wants to index the root URL, rather than waste time and money indexing all the fragments, which would be duplicates of the root URL.
Fragments can be very useful for visitors who want to link to a specific part of a long article, or directly to a comment they made.
There is no problem whatsoever with using lots of fragments for in-page navigation.
-
yup .. search engine will see it as single page -
www.mywebsite.com/example-page.php
_Now, if you numerous pages with hash tags that means, you are cramming loads of content in the same page that is www.mywebsite.com/example-page.php. This may be bad for the users but SEO's perspective this URLs bad, really bad.
To target different pages, you need to have URLs without the hash tag. _
-
As far as I am aware Google doesn't index urls with a hashtag as this is pointing to an internal part of the page - essentially it will only index the url without the hashtag, so it isn't creating a new URL. However to be certain of this I would stick a site: query with your url including the hashtag and see if it appears with the hashtag, if, as I expect it doesn't then you shouldn't have an issue with duplicate content under two urls. As far as them being ok in relation to your SEO efforts I don't see why there should be a negative impact as you are essentially making your site more user-friendly and pointing to a specific part of the page that is already indexed - your are not duplicating that part of the page by creating an internal anchor to that specific content.
Just for your confirmation I can tell you I have a page that uses an internal anchor (#) and when you do a site search in Google this page doesn't appear. When you search for it without the # it does...
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Content in Accordion doesn't rank as well as Content in Text box?
Does content rank better in a full view text layout, rather than in a clickable accordion? I read somewhere because users need to click into an accordion it may not rank as well, as it may be considered hidden on the page - is this true? accordion example: see features: https://www.workday.com/en-us/applications/student.html
Technical SEO | | DigitalCRO1 -
Problem with Yoast not seeing any of this website's text/content
Hi, My client has a new WordPress site http://www.londonavsolutions.co.uk/ and they have installed the Yoast Premium SEO plug-in. They are having issues with getting the lights to go green and the main problem is that on most pages Yoast does not see any words/content – although there are plenty of words on the pages. Other tools can see the words, however Yoast is struggling to find any and gives the following message:- Bad SEO score. The text contains 0 words. This is far below the recommended minimum of 300 words. Add more content that is relevant for the topic. Readability - You have far too little content. Please add some content to enable a good analysis. They have contacted the website developer who says that there is nothing wrong, but they are frustrated that they cannot use the Yoast tools themselves because of this issue, plus Yoast are offering no support with the issue. I hope that one of you guys has seen this problem before, or can spot a problem with the way the site has been built and can perhaps shed some light on the problem. I didn't build the site myself so won't be offended if you spot problems with it. Thanks in advance, Ben
Technical SEO | | bendyman0 -
Handling of Duplicate Content
I just recently signed and joined the moz.com system. During the initial report for our web site it shows we have lots of duplicate content. The web site is real estate based and we are loading IDX listings from other brokerages into our site. If though these listings look alike, they are not. Each has their own photos, description and addresses. So why are they appear as duplicates – I would assume that they are all too closely related. Lots for Sale primarily – and it looks like lazy agents have 4 or 5 lots and input the description the same. Unfortunately for us, part of the IDX agreement is that you cannot pick and choose which listings to load and you cannot change the content. You are either all in or you cannot use the system. How should one manage duplicate content like this? Or should we ignore it? Out of 1500+ listings on our web site it shows 40 of them are duplicates.
Technical SEO | | TIM_DOTCOM0 -
Someone is building anchor text links with child porn keywords..help :-(
Hey Everyone; I recently found that there are tons of links to my url (30+) from several sites with the anchor text "download child porn, kiddie porn, and the likes". Although the sites linking to us where the person built the links do not have this content (thank god) it is just my url + the horrible anchor text someone is putting. [added image] Obviously I would not do that to my own site especially since I was ranked for over 15 keywords in the top 5 spots on Google and Bing. I am guessing its a competitor and I am wondering that is there any way I can remove them? Is this negative seo? Also could this be the reason my site has dropped off google page 1 last month for all my positions? I am consistently trying to rebuild but my positions are flying all over the place. Im going from ranking #12 one week to #198 the next; then to #60 and finally not even on google or bing anymore; then back to #50, etc for the past month and a half... Its very aggravating and it has hurt a few of my websites; im at a total loss on how to recover now if this is the case...It seems they have started to build these links in January from what I can find on the postings.. Thank you SEOMOZ im so happy im a member now. Any suggestions on how i can get these links off or if it is why my site has lost its original rankings.. Should I just can my website and start all over with a different URL? How can I watch out for this in the future? Any help would be so so so greatly appreciated and valued 🙂 xpVjMw8
Technical SEO | | Circa0 -
Footer Links with same anchor text on all pages
We have different websites targeted at the different services our company provides. (e.g. For our document storage services, we have www.ukdocumentstorage.com. For document management, we have www.document-management-solutions.co.uk). If we take the storage site for example, every single page has a link in the footer to our document management site, with the anchor text 'Cleardata Document Management' SEOMoz is telling me that these are seen as external links (as they are on a different URL's), and I'm just clarifying that would this be a major possible factor in the website not ranking highly? How should I rectify this issue?
Technical SEO | | janc0 -
Duplicate Content
We have a ton of duplicate content/title errors on our reports, many of them showing errors of: http://www.mysite.com/(page title) and http://mysite.com/(page title) Our site has been set up so that mysite.com 301 redirects to www.mysite.com (we did this a couple years ago). Is it possible that I set up my campaign the wrong way in SEOMoz? I'm thinking it must be a user error when I set up the campaign since we already have the 301 Redirect. Any advice is appreciated!
Technical SEO | | Ditigal_Taylor0 -
Text in div
When you use text in a div like this: <div id="container"> <h1 id="doc-header">Your Business in your Location - Your Services</h1> <p>Top industries are getting hit.p> <div id="branding"> <a href="#"> <img id="logo" src="images/logo.png" alt="Your Site" /> </a> </div> Are there SEO consequences when you put text in divs?
Technical SEO | | PlusPort0 -
Duplicate Content issue
I have been asked to review an old website to an identify opportunities for increasing search engine traffic. Whilst reviewing the site I came across a strange loop. On each page there is a link to printer friendly version: http://www.websitename.co.uk/index.php?pageid=7&printfriendly=yes That page also has a link to a printer friendly version http://www.websitename.co.uk/index.php?pageid=7&printfriendly=yes&printfriendly=yes and so on and so on....... Some of these pages are being included in Google's index. I appreciate that this can't be a good thing, however, I am not 100% sure as to the extent to which it is a bad thing and the priority that should be given to getting it sorted. Just wandering what views people have on the issues this may cause?
Technical SEO | | CPLDistribution0