There are many dynamics that affect what appears on Google’s search engine results pages (SERPs).
In the current way Google describes search results, SERPs can include text results, visual results, rich elements, navigation features, and more.
The more space and real estate you can own on the SERPs, the better your chances of getting the clicks and website traffic you want from your target audience.
An important and often overlooked aspect of the SERPs, and your opportunity to gain visibility, is sitelinks.
What Are Sitelinks?
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Sitelinks are additional links or navigation elements for a specific website or domain that appear with a text or ad result on the SERP.
More generally, they are navigational in nature and allow searchers to see more ways they can click on your site.
In today’s age of context-focused SEO and an emphasis on user engagement and experience (which I fully accept and agree), sitelinks are great ways to not only own real estate, but to get important clicks and keep users when they want. land on your spot.
In organic search, Google’s algorithm only returns sitelinks to pages it deems relevant and useful to the user.
One of the benefits of sitelinks is that they can improve click-through rates (CTRs) as they increase the amount of real estate a text result has in the SERP. By doing so, they push other results potentially below the fold or out of view.
Sitelinks can improve the visibility of internal pages. Poorly performing pages can improve traffic if they appear as sitelinks on more popular pages.
Getting sitelinks to your organic results and paid ads is an important opportunity that is often overlooked.
CTRs, keeping users sticking around, and matching them to the content they want from us are vital to success on the SERPs.
Sitelinks can be part of doing more with your positive rankings and also providing quality leads to search engines.
Types Of Sitelinks
There are several types of common sitelinks:
Inline Sitelinks
Online sitelinks are usually displayed as four links in a horizontal row below the main search result.
Google screenshot, December 2022
Expanded Sitelinks
The first version that might come to mind, as I did, is Expanded Sitelink Groups.
Those take up the lion’s share of real estate in the SERP and appear as a list below the main text (or organic) result. They also include descriptions, which can be taken from the meta description or from text that Google has chosen relevant to the user’s search.
Google screenshot, December 2022
Search Box Sitelinks
A search box sitelink is a concise search box that appears below the main text result. Allows users to directly access your site’s search engine.
Google screenshot, December 2022
Paid Sitelinks
These are linked to advertisements and are the most controllable by site owners.
Sitelinks can be created and added to relevant campaigns and ad groups and appear below the text ad link and are mostly copied.
Google screenshot, December 2022
Note that I have also seen other types of sitelinks in short-lived instances. A recent example was a scrolling horizontal carousel of sitelinks on a mobile device that appears to be unactive or in the wild.
How To Get Sitelinks
There is no way to tell Google to display sitelinks or add or remove them directly.
However, you have specific ways that you can take action and implement best practices to try to get and manage them indirectly.
Text Link Sitelinks Best Practices
For organic opportunities, the best practices for getting sitelinks below a text result start with using informative, relevant, and concise page titles and headers on your website.
You’ll also want a site structure that users and bots can navigate efficiently.
That means making sure important and relevant pages are linked from the page. The use of breadcrumbs can also help Google understand the structure of the site, the relationship between the pages and the general hierarchy.
Concise and relevant anchor link text is also important to consider on your site and your efforts.
Other Sitelink Types
If you advertise through Google Ads, you can easily get sitelinks by adding them to your ad groups and campaigns.
The sitelink search box can also be an attractive and useful tool for your site.
In order for a sitelink search box to appear in your text result, you must have a functional search engine on your site where user queries direct them to a search results page. You must also add structured data from the website to the home page that defines the search action.
How to remove a sitelink search box
Conversely, to remove a sitelink search box from your site, simply add this meta tag to your home page:
Management
If an unwanted page is showing up as a sitelink, consider whether that page should be fully indexed.
If it should be indexed but is not relevant to the page in the result, consider how it is linked on the page.
Through indexing and hardlinks, you can have some control over how to pull pages from your sitelinks if they don’t belong or aren’t relevant.
In the past, there were tools within Google Webmaster Tools (the precursor to Google Search Console) that allowed you to remove certain sitelinks, but those controls are no more. Now your best bet is to manage what links are actually on your site and how they are presented to users and search engines.
Conclusion
Owning as much real estate in the SERPs as possible to get organic results is a key SEO goal and can have a positive impact on impressions and clicks on your site.
With many other types of non-organic content competing on the SERPs, you want to have as much visibility and control as possible.
Sitelinks can give you a larger space, lead users to links deeper into your site, and provide more context to search engines before they enter your site.
Featured image: MaximP/Shutterstock
How do I create a Google sitelink?
How do I show sitelinks in Google search? To add your sitemap, sign in to Google Search Console and click on your website. On the dashboard, click the âSitemapsâ link. On the next screen, click on âAdd/Test Sitemapâ (it’s in the right corner). In the popup box, add your sitemap location (usually âsitename.com/sitemap.xmlâ).
How can I create a text sitelink? Click Add Sitelink Extension in the data view and select Add Sitelink Extension. In the Edit Selected Sitelink Extension panel, enter the order in which you want the extension to appear. Enter the link text, destination URL, final URL, and final mobile URL. Enter the Description.
How are sitelinks generated?
Sitelinks are links from the same domain that are grouped under a web result. Our systems analyze the link structure of your site to find shortcuts that will save users time and allow them to quickly find the information they are looking for. Note: Actual appearance in search results may be different.
How do sitelink extensions work? Sitelink Extension – This extension displays additional links to your website below your ad. These sitelinks can be informational pages, product pages, or blog posts. Sitelinks can help improve the click-through rate (CTR) of your ad.
How does Google choose sitelinks? In Google’s own words: We only show sitelinks for results when we think they’ll be useful to the user. If your site’s structure doesn’t allow our algorithms to find good sitelinks, or we don’t think your site’s sitelinks are relevant to a user’s query, we won’t display them.
How do you influence sitelinks?
How to influence sitelinks
- Site structure. Your website architecture plays a role in displaying sitelinks. …
- Internal link. The way your pages link to other pages and the anchor text used will influence sitelinks. …
- No index. …
- Removed sitelink search box. …
- Utility and relevance.
How do I get Google Sitelink?
You can add sitelinks at the “account”, “campaign” or “ad group” level. You specify the link text (what is shown to people) and the URLs (the pages they click on). In some cases, Google may supplement your sitelinks with descriptions you’ve provided about those pages.
What are site links on SERP?
Sitelinks are those additional links that appear below the main URL of a particular domain in the SERP. These results are designed to help people better navigate your site by presenting the different areas of your site that might be of interest to them.
How do I get sitelinks in the SERP? The rules are simple:
- Use text to create your internal links.
- Use proper anchor text.
- Create more internal links to the pages you want to appear as sitelinks. In other words, pages that have a lot of internal links pointing to them are likely to show up as sitelinks.
What is a link on the site? On a website, a hyperlink (or link) is an element such as a word or a button that points to another location. When you click on a link, the link will take you to the destination of the link, which may be a web page, document, or other online content. Websites use hyperlinks as a way to navigate content online.
What is the sitelink search box? A sitelink search box is a quick way for people to find your site or app immediately on the search results page. The search box implements real-time suggestions and other features.
What is site links in Google ads?
Sitelinks help users go deeper into your website, directly from a Google Ads ad. Sitelinks appear below your ad text, helping customers find what they’re looking for on your site with just one click. Sitelinks appear in ads at the top and bottom of Google search results.
What is the purpose of sitelinks? Sitelinks are links from the same domain that are grouped under a web result. Our systems analyze the link structure of your site to find shortcuts that will save users time and allow them to quickly find the information they are looking for.
Are sitelinks important?
Rich sitelinks are fundamentally important in one’s overall SEO strategy because they are obviously useful to users and a great way for Google to display a variety of deeper content that allows your users to quickly navigate to the part of the site and the type of content they are looking for. I want to visit.
What is the benefit of using the sitelink extension? Sitelink Extensions allow you to display additional links below your ads, allowing you to direct users to the most relevant pages within your website. There are several benefits to displaying Sitelink Extensions alongside your ads: They allow you to take up more space on the first page of Google.
Why would an advertiser use sitelinks?
Explanation: An advertiser should use sitelinks to give customers quick access to various pages on an advertiser’s website. Sitelinks can take people to specific pages on your site: your store hours, a specific product, or more. Sitelinks will display in a variety of ways depending on device, position, and other factors.
What is the benefit of using sitelink extensions? Sitelink Extensions use more ad space on the SERPs, so your ad takes up more space on the page and gets more attention. Sitelink extensions also increase CTR, as users have more options for the web pages that will answer their queries. Additional benefits for your PPC campaigns include: Detailed analytics.
What are sitelinks in ads?
Sitelinks help users go deeper into your website, directly from a Google Ads ad. Sitelinks appear below your ad text, helping customers find what they’re looking for on your site with just one click. Sitelinks appear in ads at the top and bottom of Google search results.
What are sitelink extensions, for example? What is a sitelink extension? Sitelinks are additional links that you include in your PPC (Pay Per Click) ads to take people directly to specific pages on your website. They are a type of extension of Google Ads (now called “ad assets”). They show additional information in their ads.
How many sitelinks should you have? A classic mistake I see quite often is not having enough sitelinks per ad group or campaign. The maximum number of sitelinks Google will display is 4 on desktop and 6 on mobile. Make sure you have at least this amount in each ad group/campaign; otherwise your sitelinks may not display.
Why would an advertiser use sitelinks? Explanation: An advertiser should use sitelinks to give customers quick access to various pages on an advertiser’s website. Sitelinks can take people to specific pages on your site: your store hours, a specific product, or more. Sitelinks will display in a variety of ways depending on device, position, and other factors.
What does a sitelink text look like?
Once you set up sitelinks, they’ll appear below your ad text, giving your users up to eight additional links to click. Sitelinks contain three elements: a title (the text of the link) and two descriptive lines. The title appears as clickable text and is limited to 25 characters.
What is a SiteLink Extension Example? What is a sitelink extension? Sitelinks are additional links that you include in your PPC (Pay Per Click) ads to take people directly to specific pages on your website. Here’s an example: They’re a type of Google Ads extension (now called ad “assets”). They show additional information in their ads.
How do sitelinks appear?
Google sitelinks appear below the first search result on search engine results pages (SERPs). They are internal links to the website, presented with a brief description. Sitelinks are often found when doing a brand search and help the user navigate your website.
How are sitelinks written? Sitelinks contain three elements: a title (the text of the link) and two descriptive lines. The title appears as clickable text and is limited to 25 characters. Description lines, on the other hand, appear as non-clickable text and have a limit of 35 characters per description line.
What should SiteLink text be?
Keep Link Text Short – Short links mean more links can be displayed, so make sure you stay within the limits. Sitelink text is limited to 25 characters in most languages or 12 characters in double-width languages such as Chinese, Japanese, and Korean.
How are sitelinks displayed? Sitelinks are links displayed below your snippet description in Google search results that point to other pages on your website. Sitelinks are automated by Google algorithms and are only displayed when they are useful to the user.
How do I get sitelink?
You can add sitelinks at the “account”, “campaign” or “ad group” level. You specify the link text (what is shown to people) and the URLs (the pages they click on). In some cases, Google may supplement your sitelinks with descriptions you’ve provided about those pages.
Do sitelinks cost money? Sitelinks can be added for free – you’re only charged for clicks from people who see your ad. The cost of a click on a sitelink is equal to the cost of a click on the headline of the same ad.
How does Google determine sitelinks? Sitelinks are links from the same domain that are grouped under a web result. Our systems analyze the link structure of your site to find shortcuts that will save users time and allow them to quickly find the information they are looking for. Note: Actual appearance in search results may be different.
