Earlier this week Google launched an update to sitelinks. The changes include an improvement to how the links are displayed, and further enhances the quality of results when a particular word or phrase is searched for.
Fundamentally, sitelinks haven’t changed and will still only appear if Google considers them useful for a specific search. But visually there are a few changes:
- Full-size text links with a URL and a line of text, making the sitelinks easier to see.
- Maximum number of links that appear has been raised from eight to 12.
- The separation of the top domain and other domains is clearer. If sitelinks do appear for the top result then all other results will be other domains, with the exception of links for subdomains of the top result.
This week’s launch also includes a change in which sitelinks will appear. According to Google, “sitelink selection and ranking can change from query to query, allowing more optimized results.” Also through the use of a Webmaster Tools account, users can suggest a demotion for a particular sitelink if they don’t feel it is appropriate or if they feel it is incorrect. Removal is not guaranteed but it never hurts to make a suggestion to Google to enhance the way your own site and its corresponding sitelinks are viewed.
Thanks for the post Robyn. This is going to be HUGE for brands, but at the same time, devastating for affiliate marketers.
Agreed!!!
Yes I’ve noticed the changes in the Google serps.
Little space left for new players.
It looks like an outbound marketing search engine now.
Not so interesting as before.
Goofle panda was launched over here in France on thursday 11th of august.
So far so good.
My website and those of my clients are doing fine.
Only logical mister Spock, Google panda is not targeting those kinds of websites lol.
No wonder the world economy is goinig down with so much narrow minded thinking.
If you want to know more about how the web works, stop reading google’s blog.
Start trying, testing and failing. Then trying testing and failing etc… until you discover what reakky works.
That’s what I do, and it work’s for me and my clients.
just try it, do the exact opposite of what Matt says. It works.
Only logical mister Spock, he is a google employee.
Watch this video to learn more.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K5wCfYujRdE&feature=player_embedded
I’ve only seen this for broad searches where the intent is to land on the brand site anyhow. This may change but it doesn’t seem to be affecting keyword searches. It will be interesting to watch.
I wish they would let webmasters control these links considering most of the time they show useless links, which reflects poorly on Google’s search quality. Sometimes algorithms just don’t work!
Gino – Through Webmaster Tools you can suggest a link be removed, or in Google’s words “demoted.” This doesn’t guarantee they will move it from the sitelinks, but it is something you can do if you feel a link is incorrect or inappropriate.
Thanks for the comment.
Yeah I noticed that, but also noticed they mention deep linking to important pages as a factor. I think the best thing to do is to go to all the important pages and posts on your site and link back to all the pages/posts you want to show up in the sitelinks using the anchor text and alt tags you desire for the sitelink titles.
I noticed this happening on various levels to a number of my clients. Some kind of control would certainly be useful but anytime control is given to webmasters it could lead to abuses and spamming. Perhaps they’ll have some kind of review system eventually?
valuable article…
thanks for posting
Thanks Robyn Storms for share this.
Oh, i noticed this on Google a few weeks ago and i think it’s a great improvment for search.
Was a descriptive text. Thank you very much.
Robyn– This is really interesting… I have ran into a few things lately with google sitelink, but was not sure what had changed and why. This article put it into perspective.
Glad I was able to help you figure it all out. Thanks for the comment.
Although Google doesn’t guarantee sitelink demotions for link location, I’ve found that they are usually very willing – in other words, it’s worth the short time it takes to ask
It sounds great for webs in the first position. There are a lot of opportunities. But for the second, third and so on it is terrible (likely to websites with domain names formed by keywords).
Regards!
valuable article…
thanks for posting
I am having problems with SERP tracking which reports results without the new sitelinks. However if I search as user the sitelinks are there making my site appear further up. Is there a way for user (not site owner) to disable this when searching?
I don’t think so, but I may be wrong?
Thanks 4 sharing this. Please share something on how to promote internal pages to appear as sitelinks.
Good post – it is very important to try and control those sitelinks which appear, by reviewing and blocking those which you don’t want to appear, or as you say ‘demote’.
Another tip is to make sure that you haven’t got all of your content placed behind https as Google only displays sitelinks for http content – for example, PayPal has no sitelinks as a result.
Hope this helps?
Gavin