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Our commentary
In case your wondering what Site Links are, they are the additional blue links to deeper pages in the site listed under the main domain name, often displayed for a brand search.
This article has to be mainly based on speculation and reverse engineering the sites that do have SiteLinks since Google don't explicitly explain Sitelinks.
To understand sitelinks you should start with the official Google explanation on Google site Links although all they really say is that they are created automatically!
Note that Google now enables you to selectively switch off some Sitelinks within its Webmaster tools facility
A useful video post on different elements of results Snippets contains this quote from Matt Cutts about Sitelinks:
"€œEverybody, regarding Sitelinks, the most we"€™ve revealed is that our method is algorithmic and that no money is involved. We haven"€™t discussed exactly how we decide when to show Sitelinks and what they say, and I don"€™t think we"€™ll be able to go into detail on that anytime soon. Sorry I can"€™t give more info"€.
As we said above, these are based on an automatic algorithm, so you can't specifically request them, instead you have to take actions to prove to Google you deserve them. Through experience, it tends to be the largest sites and large brands that have them.
When we first posted this free years ago, this Sitelinks explanation said > more than 10,000 pages were necessary, but Google has adjusted the threshold and I now think it is possible in sites with a few hundred pages and few hundred searches per month.
Through reviewing sites with Sitelinks I think we can say the following will increase your chances of algorithmic inclusion of Sitelinks:
We often see inappropriate Sitelinks - maybe mentioning less important products, promotions or site sections, even 404 pages in the worst case. Here you can take some action. As we explain in our Guide to using Google Webmaster Tools for SEO, you can tell Google which individual sitelinks you don't like and they will be automatically replaced by another!
More recently (2009) Google introduced mini site links. This is what you currently see for Smart Insights - relatively small sites with less brand traffic / lower number of visitors as assessed by Google tend to have these.
With similar benefits mini site links can appear on any result not necessarily the first like standard site links. Checkout the Google Webmaster blog about mini site links here
By Chris Soames
Chris Soames is a Smart Insights blogger and consultant, he has worked in digital marketing for over 6 years with the last few years managing international web strategies for a leading travel brand. Now the Commercial Director at First 10, an Integrated marketing agency, he helps clients get clarity on their marketing strategy and create campaigns engineered to engage with their consumers to help drive sell-through. Most of all, Chris enjoys working with talented people who want to create great (& commercial) things not just tick boxes.
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