How to get Google Sitelinks for your website
Many wonder how they can take advantage of Google's Sitelinks for their websites. What exactly are Sitelinks, how can you get them and are they worth the effort?
Definition:
Google Sitelinks are a collection of links that appear below the result of a website (see image). These additional links point to the main pages of the website. As they are chosen by Google's automated algorithms, we are at this time limited in what is displayed.
As an example, here are the sitelinks that you get for Apple.com when you search for "apple":
Sitelinks only appear for general search terms. You can see an example of Sitelinks if you perform a Google search for "apple", but you won't get Sitelinks if you search for a phrase such as "apple desktop computers". You are more likely to find Sitelinks when searching for brand names or if the search matches the site's domain name.
What Google uses for the Sitelinks:
Google seems to use the first level links on a website for the Sitelinks. Links that are not listed on the homepage of your site probably will not be used as Sitelinks.
The links should be descriptive text links or image links with a descriptive IMG ALT attribute. JavaScript or Flash links are not considered for Sitelinks. Google currently uses 2 to 8 links for the Sitelinks of a website. Unfortunately, it is unclear how Google assigns the number of links to each website or the order they will be displayed.
The text that is used for the Sitelinks can be the text that are used for the link (anchor text) or the title of the linked page. It appears that Google prefers links that appear at the top of a web page.
Getting Sitelinks for your Website:
Unfortunately, there is nothing certain about Google's Sitelinks. The following factors seem to influence whether Google displays Sitelinks or not:
- Your website must have a stable #1 ranking for the searched keyword. Other websites do not seem to get Sitelinks.
- Your website must be at least 2 years old. At this time younger websites do not get Sitelinks.
- The number of searches and the number of clicks that your website gets for a certain keyword seem to be considered. Keywords that are not searched often enough do not get Sitelinks. It also seems that your website has to get many clicks for the searched keyword.
- 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 main keywords of a website, not for all keywords for which a website is listed.
Sitelinks provide a level of convenience and are getting positive feedback. Not all websites will benefit from this feature, and as this feature is still in its infancy it is a bit buggy. You can be assured that Sitelinks are here to stay.
