What is an anchor

[AnthonyJ]

Can anyone explain what an anchor is and how and why you would use one?

[falkencreative]

Think of it as a shortcut within a page. It could be useful if you have a really long page, and want the user to be able to jump from place to place within the page without scrolling.

[AnthonyJ]

So basically a link within a page?

[Wickham]

The anchor is a piece of code that fixes a place on a page that you want the reader to see at the top of the window when he clicks a link somewhere else. The link he clicks can be on the same page or on a different page and when clicked the page will scroll or refresh to show the anchor position he chose at the top of the window.

 

See http://www.wickham43.net/generaladvice.php#anchors

[Graphic Design]

In Hypertext Markup Language (HTML), an anchor is the establishing of a term, phrase, image, or other information object as being either:

The target of a hypertext link within a document, or a reference (a link you can select) to such a target.

[newseed]

@Graphic Design: When you copy and paste content/quote from another source be sure to wrap quotes around it to indicate that you are quoting someone elses writing like this:

 

In Hypertext Markup Language (HTML), an anchor is the establishing of a term, phrase, image, or other information object as being either:

The target of a hypertext link within a document, or a reference (a link you can select) to such a target.

[LSW]

Does that work for you?

 

Look at it this way. Have you gone top an FAQ page where there are dozens of questions, when you click a question it throws you down to the answer on that page? That was an anchor. They also use them in Wikipedia when you look something up, you can jump down to the block of info you want and skip the rest. Used a link that said "Back to top" after you read an article or something, that too is an anchor. I usually add the anchor to either my H1 tag or to my Banner, that way they truly pop up to the top of the page.

 

It is, as mentioned above, an internal link to another part of the page to keep the user from having to scroll all the way. It comes in real handy sometimes.

[Tofayel]

Generally anchor is a keyword. When we build link for SEO purpose, there show keyword but invisible link is there, that is anchor.

[akurtula]

you would use them when creating a website where all the content is within one page, for example

 

<p id="content1">some content</p>
<p id="content2">some content</p>
<p id="content3">some content</p>
<p id="content4">some content</p>

 

if you want to skip to content4, you would just do this (within the same page):

<a href="#content4">read content for</a>

 

ps - if you add /#post_id_28133 to the end of this pages url, you will be scrolled to this post automatically

Edited October 1, 2011 by akurtula

[Andrea]

Generally anchor is a keyword. When we build link for SEO purpose, there show keyword but invisible link is there, that is anchor.

 

Huh?

[Elia6789]

"Tofayel" thought of a different acception of the term, the inter-page one, that values in SEO. However, the technique is the same.

[vincewicks]

Anchors is a clickable text in a hyperlink that allow you to move to a specific location on a page. Linking to anchors allows you to help your readers navigate to content quickly. It also contained in the anchor can determine the ranking that the page will receive by search engines. Example of it is <a href="sample.com">get me here</a>, the get me here is the anchor.