What are Google Sitelinks?
Some times when you do a search on Google for a phrase, you’ll occasionally notice a collection of links which will appear below the result of a website.
For example: if you search for the phrase “ilearnsmart” on Google, what you see displayed in the SERPs is:
TITLE
Learning Resources | Online Courses | eLearning Content Portal
SNIPPET
Online Learning Resources – iLearnsmart provides Online courses, elearning resources library, Interactive learning content for education, students, …
www.ilearnsmart.com/
But then note the additional Google site links below the snippet description that appear as follows:
CBSE Grade 12 Responding to Change Managing the Change Cycle The Counselling Approach | Application Server Assertive Communication Preparing for Negotiations Turbo C |
More results from ilearnsmart.com » | |
Each of these are additional links are to main pages of the website. Theses extra links are randomly and automatically chosen by Google.
Some tips about site links…
First let me say that it’s not certain how Google assigns the number of links to each website. The text that is used for the Sitelinks can be the text that are used for the link (or anchor text) on the homepage or the title of the linked page.
- Google seems to prefer links near the top of a web page.
- Sitelinks usually only appear for more general search phrases.
- Sitelinks do show up most often on brand related searches.
Which links does Google choose for the Sitelinks?
You’ll notice that they always seem to be first level links on any
website. In other words, any links not included on your homepage
won’t be used as Sitelink criteria.
- Unpopular Keywords that are not searched too often don’t get Sitelinks.
- Older Web sites seem to be awarded sitelinks more than newer sites.
- It also seems that your website has to get a certain volume of
- clicks for the searched keyword.
The following elements also seem to influence whether Google displays Sitelinks or not: (but there is no clear science or guarantee that
you can get Google sitelinks by following any formula.)
- Your site needs have a a pretty stable top ranking for the searched keyword. Other Web sites coming up in lower spots don’t ever seem to be awarded Sitelinks.
- The number of searches and the number of clicks that your website gets, for that certain keyword phrase seem to also be an influence.
- The number of links that point to your website with the searched keyword as the anchor text seem to influence the creation of Sitelinks.
- Sitelinks only seem to appear for the major primary keyword phrase of a website, but not for all keywords.
- If your website meets these criteria Google might assign Sitelinks to your website for your most important keywords.
- Sitelinks can be a very nice bonus for search results.