Is this correct or not

[Marga]

I started working on my site a few years ago. Then I stopped for a couple of years and this year I have started once more.

I vaguely remember reading when I first started that links that take you to a certain place on your page ( the <a .. #></a>) kind are not good SEO practice.
Is this so or am I making this up?
Thanks.

[dzine]

There is hardly anything wrong with that. It's part of the basic functionality of HTML. How many of these do you use on each page?

[Marga]

Well, I use 20 on a page...but tha's not the page I'm asking about.

What I'm thinking is that if I link from page 1 to a certain word on page2, that could be an easy way to trick people to open a link and then show them something else on page 2, that is not so relevant to the whole page. - and that could be frowned upon.

But here is why I need this:
I have a long vertical menu that isn't expanded. When you expand a topic, after the expansion the first page in the expansion is automatically shown (it's an educational site and it's best if the pages are read in order.) The page is shown from the beginning and the expanded menu often is not visible, and you need to scroll down to see it. I think it would be better if the first page appeared but the page wouldn't be displayed from the top, and the user saw the expanded menu, to choose what they want. And for that I would need to jump lower down the page to this expanded menu, using that (#) addresing. May I do that?

[dzine]

Usability-wise, that sounds like just the thing to do (if I understand correctly :-)
Provided that the link is at least more or less relevant indeed, and that it is of use to your visitors.

And since the major search engines appear to be placing emphasis on user experience nowadays (as opposed to raw SEO), this shouldn't trip any spam filters unless:
1) you are actually abusing the <a> tag
2) AND your site is up for manual review.

I'm guessing that this won't be a problem for you either way.

Of course I cannot be sure, because I don't know in detail how search engine bots and officials interpret stuff like this. However: people who want to fool the search engines will be using REALLY icky tricks, excluding non-standard internal links that is

[tstolber]

This seems like sound practice to me. I don't think it will effect things for you positively or negatively. There is a slight (and it is very slight) argument that by anchoring (thats what the a part is) to a specific section on a page, the search engines can more accurately associate the link and therefore the value with the specific section of content it was associated with. I can imagine that this only helps with associating relevance and would therefore be a good thing.