I just noticed that in certain SERPs, where page copy is used for the snippet text (no meta description is present in this case), links to named anchors on the same page are appearing as links in the snippet text. Have a look at the result below or See for yourself .
Strangely, as pointed out by my colleagues Randip and Ben, the link in the snippet goes through a redirect similar to what would be used for site links, as opposed to the direct link that the page title uses.
I guess this is useful to users, because the most relevant part of the page is probably going to be the part under the named anchor, as the named anchor link text contains the search term(s). I am, however, surprised that this is being recognised like this when you so often see strange text, and even sections of code, used in the snippet when a meta description is not present.
Gregory Lyons on 
Jeremy Head on 
Digital Marketing on 
Ali Ahmadyar on 
Dinesh Thakur on 
Dave Oliver on 
Art Rogue Studio on 
Rob Pearson on 
September 10th, 2009 at 5:00 pm
Nice find Rob. It has its own unique referral id “oi=section_link” (site links have “oi=smap”), which means you could potentially track this to see if users are clicking on them.
September 10th, 2009 at 5:19 pm
I’m seeing a lot of examples of “Jump to” links being added in for pages with lists of questions linked to named anchors. It seems if Google finds an appropriate anchor link then its pulling in that link exactly as it finds it.
http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=What+does+Professional+Indemnity+insurance+do
Whats interesting is why is this page ranking 7th being given the “Jump to” over sites that Google feels answer the query better, and appear higher up in the SERPs? Could it be that that specific URL+anchor is linked to from an external site?
September 10th, 2009 at 5:25 pm
Nice spot Rob (and hello)! Google are obviously working on some natural language parsing lately in an attempt to up the relevancy of their results. They seem to be trying to become a bit of an answer and fact engine right now. I wonder if their ‘internet stats’ project is a similar piece of processing.
September 10th, 2009 at 5:25 pm
@Randpi Dhesi: that seems to indicate that it is a defined method that Google is using i guess? not any kind of bug.
@Ben Adam: It is interesting that it is only picking this up in some cases, and that in both of the examples we have found, the link is preceded by “jump to”.
September 11th, 2009 at 9:54 am
@Steve: Long time no see! – hope you are well. Interesting idea about the question/answer engine. This would effectively answer the users “question” better by offering them a link to the most relevant FAQ.
September 11th, 2009 at 10:50 am
Nice find! This is the first time I saw this. Perhaps I should start implementing these into my longer articles…
September 11th, 2009 at 10:51 am
Indeed, it’s been a while!
Google definitely has a way of extracting meaning from it’s serps now, it’s interesting to see how they are experimenting with it. I reckon they don’t want to go all out with a Wolfram style answers engine so are trying to find the best way to integrate it in the existing serps.
September 11th, 2009 at 12:10 pm
nice stuff, thnx
September 11th, 2009 at 1:00 pm
Good article, well spotted.
Always good to see Google enhancing the functionality of the SERPs. More so when I came across currently topical search at the moment around the athelete – Caster Semenya:
I suppose the jump to links are included if there is a related page on the site (especially on Wikipedia pages). Which makes me thinks you need to optimise your Meta Description tag.
September 14th, 2009 at 1:41 pm
All might be interested in this post by SEOMoz about all of the new links and data that Google is now putting into snippets.
October 23rd, 2009 at 9:19 pm
I see 7 anchor based links in http://www.cosmeticharmony.com why so many for some websites, does anybody know ?
November 27th, 2009 at 12:16 pm
Google keeps coming up with new things, i know that they are looking more and more into what the user actually does and less on on page optimization. This really changes things up.