Google Sitelinks

[DesignerNick]

I have always thought that these were natural and if the site had a good internal link structure it would happen.

I have spoken to somebody today and they have asked to have some on their site. I said I thought it was natural but their previous designers have said there are things that can be done to make them appear.

Am I right in thinking nothing can be done to force them to appear? Does a Google XML Sitemap help with this?

Thanks

 

[RadiusBPO]

I had them on my site, now they have gone. Nothing changed. So no idea!

 

[DesignerNick]

I have had them on sites but thought it was down to things like traffic, a good link structure (folders), backlinks, domain age etc.

 

[pete_m]

As far as I know, there's no direct way of getting the sitelinks. I've also got a couple of sites that have lost them.

Here's what I think:
Sitelinks only appear when the number 1 site outranks number 2 by a significant margin, for that particular search term.

So often a website will get them for "website name" as a keyphrase. But not always

If that is the reason, then Google has increased the margin required. That's why many sites have lost their sitelinks.


I've found a couple of searches that illustrate this. Search on Google for the following (without quotes):
"my supermarket" - sitelinks
"compare supermarket" - sitelinks
"compare supermarket prices" - no sitelinks

 

[RobinJames]

yes I think you're right - I have two sites that have site links:

Search google for either "Cherry Call" or "Planet Numbers" and both are blessed... Maybe having the domain name that matches the search term helps too...

 

[OldWelshGuy]

Nope, as I have seen sitelinks on sites as low as 5 in the serps.

 

[pete_m]

Nope, as I have seen sitelinks on sites as low as 5 in the serps.

I've never seen them on any position other than 1. Pretty much every article I've seen on Sitelinks mentions that it's always the number 1 position in the natural results.

Perhaps you were seeing Adwords/News/Products/Local searches above the Sitelinks? Either that, or something has changed in the past year or so.

 

[DotNetWebs]

For my main query the top 3 have them.

Although all three now only have a single line.

http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&source=hp&q=horsham&aq=f&aqi=g10&aql=&oq=

Regards

Dotty

 

[OldWelshGuy]

I've never seen them on any position other than 1. Pretty much every article I've seen on Sitelinks mentions that it's always the number 1 position in the natural results.

Perhaps you were seeing Adwords/News/Products/Local searches above the Sitelinks? Either that, or something has changed in the past year or so.

See the above post. Yep, things change and change all the time. Sitelinks are about deep linking and internal link structure (IMO anyhow)

 

[gemd89]

For party supplies when i just looked the 1st and 3rd result had them!

Would like to know if theres anything you can do to get them there.

Argos still have the full thing and the search bar - must be to do with traffic and domain/keyphrase.

Gemma

 

[RadiusBPO]

I've never seen them on any position other than 1. Pretty much every article I've seen on Sitelinks mentions that it's always the number 1 position in the natural results.

Perhaps you were seeing Adwords/News/Products/Local searches above the Sitelinks? Either that, or something has changed in the past year or so.

They show up frequently on sites not top. Normally seems to be some sort of keyworded domain though.

Also every article you have read is out of date now

 

[pete_m]

For my main query the top 3 have them.

Although all three now only have a single line.

http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&source=hp&q=horsham&aq=f&aqi=g10&aql=&oq=

Regards

Dotty

Cheers DotNetWebs - looks like we were talking at cross purposes. I was talking about the larger sitelinks that appear at number one; there are mini-sitelinks that can appear on other positions.

 

[OldWelshGuy]

Just to clarify, sitelinks (presence and content) are phrase sensitive. so a site only gets them for certain phrases. now that is the major league clue to it being anchor text/target content related.

 

[OldWelshGuy]

Cheers DotNetWebs - looks like we were talking at cross purposes. I was talking about the larger sitelinks that appear at number one; there are mini-sitelinks that can appear on other positions.

Large sitelinks can also appear at lower positions, never seen them below position 3 though

 

[pete_m]

Large sitelinks can also appear at lower positions, never seen them below position 3 though

Interesting. Again, I've never seen the long sitelinks at anything other than first. Do you have any examples?

I agree that site structure probably has an influence, as does anchor text (and probably external links to internal pages).

Sitelinks certainly are dependent on the phrase, as I showed in my first post.

 

[DotNetWebs]

Cheers DotNetWebs - looks like we were talking at cross purposes. I was talking about the larger sitelinks that appear at number one; there are mini-sitelinks that can appear on other positions.

Was we have those as well (at no1) but only for a more exact phrase.

Google Visit Horsham

Regards

Dotty

 

[Curious]

Could CTR have anything to do with them appearing as well? i.e. If you appear to be the destination that people are looking for, for a particular term, then it would make more sense for G to expose more of your site?

Or is that the wrong direction to take?

 

[stephan42]

I always thought that that they displayed when you ticked all the relevant criteria set down by Google. Also don't you have the option to pick which sitelinks are displayed in Google Webmaster Tools?

 

[thetime22]

As far as I know, there's no direct way of getting the sitelinks. I've also got a couple of sites that have lost them.

Here's what I think:
Sitelinks only appear when the number 1 site outranks number 2 by a significant margin, for that particular search term.

So often a website will get them for "website name" as a keyphrase. But not always

If that is the reason, then Google has increased the margin required. That's why many sites have lost their sitelinks.


I've found a couple of searches that illustrate this. Search on Google for the following (without quotes):
"my supermarket" - sitelinks
"compare supermarket" - sitelinks
"compare supermarket prices" - no sitelinks

Yeah i agree.