How do I get sitelinks on Google?

Sitelinks are the extra links displayed underneath a search result like this...

Screen_Shot_2017-02-28_at_15.23.58.png

 

When do they appear?

They typically appear when the user is searching for a brand they already know. These kind of searches are called 'navigational'. A user searching for apple, tesla or amazon likely wants to go straight to the company's website. Google knows this, so displays some links deeper into their sites rather than just linking to their homepage.

 

How do I get sitelinks?

There isn't a list of actions you can take to get your site showing up with sitelinks. And if you're lucky enough to get sitelinks, you can't choose exactly which sitelinks will be shown.

The first step towards sitelinks is to make sure you appear at the top when someone searches for your 'brandname' or 'brand name' (say, 'teslamotors' or 'tesla motors'). This indicates that Google sees your site as the most relevant for searches for your brand. You can use all of the normal on and off page SEO techniques to improve your ranking for your brand search.

Once you're appearing at the top you should have a good, obvious navigation structure on your site. This is so that Google can build a picture of how your site is structured and decide which links are key sections and pages.

This really is as simple as following normal web design and usability conventions of a top navigation of text links (not images) and links in the footer to section pages like collections and key pages like contact.

Remember also to use good anchor text for links within your shop's content-

Good: New in! See our children's autumn / winter clothes collection

Bad: New in! Click here to see our children's autumn / winter clothes collection

 

I have sitelinks, how can I change those that are displayed?

While you can't hand-pick the sitelinks you want to be displayed, you can remove particular sitelinks. However this will also remove the URL entirely from Google, so use with extreme caution.

You used to be able to demote particular sitelinks from within Google Search Console but that feature was removed. Now you can use the noindex meta tag to tell search engines not to index a particular page at all.

We can help Plug in SEO Plus customers remove individual pages or sections from search engines. Just email help+plus@pluginseo.com and tell us what you'd like removed.

Roughly, you'll have some code in the <head> of theme.liquid that looks for particular URLs or sections and adds the noindex meta tag if it matches like this:

{% if page.handle == 'secret-page' %}   <meta name = "robots" content = "noindex"> {% endif %} 

 

I don't understand why sitelinks aren't showing for my site?

As we covered above, sitelinks are an extra that Google will sometimes show for navigational searches. They aren't guaranteed. We've seen small, new shops get them but well-established brands miss out.

The best thing to focus on is optimizing your shop for your brand name to make sure you appear at the top when someone searches for it. Of course if your brand name is very generic and the search term is popular [cheap car insurance] this will likely be impossible.

Once you appear at the top for your brand name, look at the navigation and linking tips above to coax Google into displaying sitelinks.

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