Site links for some and not for others - Google give me some respect
Last week in our bootcamp the subject of sitelinks came up. Later that night when I came home someone else had sent me an email asking about how to get sitelinks to show in the search results.
First things first... What are sitelinks?
Sitelinks are the links pictured above - they include 4 links directly to different pages on our website. The sitelinks are: Reachd TV, Graduates, Dates & Prices, Accommodations Not all searches will generate sitelinks. A search for "Adwords Training in Vancouver" also shows our site #1 but we do not have any sitelinks for that search.
How can I get some sitelinks?
According to Google this is a purely an automated process. Here is their description of how and why they generate site links
"Our process for generating Sitelinks is completely automated. We show them 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"
2 Things I can tell you about sitelinks.
1. A clear site structure is important. In the google webmaster guidelines it mentions that you should have a clear hierarchy of pages. This is especially true if you desire those coveted sitelinks.
2. Of the 4 pages listed above in our sitelinks, 3 are our most popular pages. Traffic is a significant factor when it comes to determining sitelinks. Google will create sitelinks for the pages that people are most often visiting. If you want to get a sitelink to a particular page, be sure that you promote that page throughout your site so that you can increase the pageviews of that page and turn influence the sitelinks.
Again, this is a totally automated process. Google does not give you a way to submit sitelinks. They will however give you an option to remove sitelinks in the Google Webmaster Tools. Who knows maybe the option to submit sitelinks will be seen some day, but for now we just have to wait, work, and hope.