The Google Sitelinks update that took place recently has lead to the appearance of Sitelinks to the sites that seem really worth assigning them, but haven’t got them previously (one of SimpleSEM client has also been assigned them after update).
However, those who haven’t seen additional links to their site in SERPs might wonder, what Google Sitelinks are and what could be done to achieve them. Here is how Google defines Sitelinks:
“The links shown below some sites in our search results, called Sitelinks, are meant to help users navigate your site. 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’re looking for.
We only show Sitelinks for results when we think they’ll be useful to the user. If the structure of your site doesn’t allow our algorithms to find good Sitelinks, or we don’t think that the Sitelinks for your site are relevant for the user’s query, we won’t show them.
At the moment, Sitelinks are completely automated. We’re always working to improve our Sitelinks algorithms, and we may incorporate webmaster input in the future.”
What algorythims are used to choose the sites for sitelinks assignment? How are the particular pages within the site chosen to be shown among sitelinks? According to Google representative Vanessa Fox Google shows Sitelinks “when we think they’ll be most useful to searchers, saving them time from hunting through web pages to find the information they are looking for.”
To make some assumptions and recommendations on how to receive Sitelinks from Google, we aggregated the data known about Sitelinks, researched the sites that already have them assigned, gathered Google representatives comments on Sitelinks such as the following one from Vanessa Fox
“Ranking the plurality of links based on at least one of a number of accesses associated with web pages corresponding to the plurality of links, a number of web pages with a link pointing to a web page corresponding to one of the plurality of links, how closely the search query matches information on web pages corresponding to each of the plurality of links or the user’s history associated with accessing web pages corresponding to each of the plurality of links.”
Here are some tips that will not guarantee your site to achieve Google Sitelinks but will definitely lead to the increase of overall site quality and marketing efforts effectiveness:
- Structure site navigation clearly. Use special HTML and CSS features to achieve desired appearance.
- Define a limited number of logical destinations users might be interested in. Don’t overwhelm the visitor with too many choices.
- Include an XML sitemap of your site.
- Validate your site markup
- Create pages under semantic principles and naming conventions
- Provide the daily traffic of 1000 visits or more to your site
- Brand the web site with a unique name.
- Include useful and informative titles and META descriptions to the site
Check out your site in Google after the Sitelinks update. Maybe you already have them!
One Response to “What Google Sitelinks Update Has Brought to Your Site”
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September 20th, 2007 at 3:56 am
I want to know more about google algorithm for sitelink, how it works
and how can i got sitelinks.
thnaks
iliyas patel