Google's New And Improved Sitelinks

Over the past few weeks there have been a number of reports claiming that Google has been testing with sitelinks within the search engine result pages. This was confirmed just last week by Google, who announced the introduction of the improved sitelinks. At the time, they explained that their aim was to “...improve the organisation and quality of our search results”.

For anyone unaware of what sitelinks are, they are displayed underneath a listing within the SERP's (Search Engine Results Pages), and they offer navigation to a deeper page within a website.

In the image below, you can see the new changes that have been introduced, and we're using the QueryClick website as an example:

These sitelinks within the SERPs have been drastically changed and updated. Each section of the site is much more clearer than before and include full size links, a URL and a line of snippet text.

Google have also stated that with the new improved sitelinks comes greater Visibility, Flexibility, Clarity and Quality.

Changes Being Introduced:

• Previously all sitelistings were fixed. Now each query carried out will affect the sitelinks that will be chosen and displayed. With the maximum amount of sitelinks that can appear for a site now risen from 8 to 12.

• Increased clarity for domain listings within the SERP's. If the top domain appears with sitelinks all domains underneath the top result will be from other domains – with a single exception being that the top result is a sub-part of a domain. Therefore, as explained in simple terms by Google - “from a ranking perspective, there's really no separation between 'regular' results and sitelinks anymore.”

• Because sitelinks vary over time, and by query, there may be certain link that could be shown which can be considered inappropriate or irrelevant, it's now possible within the Webmaster Tools to suggest a demotion to a sitelink. Allowing a maximum of 100 demotions per site.

Changes Required:

• Ensuring that all URLs within a website are simple and well structured can increase the likeliness of relevant pages showing up for a specific search. As demonstrated by our very own structure: http://uk.queryclick.com/en/search-engine-optimisation-seo/

• Meta-descriptions and titles are now of much greater importance than before. Making sure a message can be delivered in 32 characters is vital for all possible pages that will appear as a sitelink.

The improved sitelinks only currently appear for navigational searches that involve brand names. This is because the user already knows exactly what they are looking for when carrying out any kind of navigational search which can potentially make finding the exact page faster and more conveniently for them, which helps Google achieve its aims of making search “Better and faster at helping you find what you want, when you want it, where you want it.”

Google have also stated that the one-line sitelinks and the sitelinks on ads will not be affected by this change, and webmasters are reminded  that best practices for the link structure is still relevant. It must also be noted that the updated sitelinks are only available to all modern browsers such as Chrome, IE and Firefox.