Google Sitelinks - The Good, Bad, and Ugly

[Chris Boggs]

This thread will serve as a discussion area for today's SEW Experts SEM Crossfire column which discusses Google's Sitelinks. The column and others can also be found by clicking on the "SEW Experts" Link on the left and navigating to SEM Crossfire.

For those unfamiliar with what Google Sitelinks are, here is Google's FAQ page.

Please read the column and then add your ideas or examples and hopefully this will serve as useful feedback for the Google!

[Chris Boggs]

Ok it is live now so please feel free to share you frustration or stand up for Google. One point that got edited out that I feel is important regarding my POV is that the "bad" are Google's fault, and that the "ugly" are a combination of Google and the webmasters' fault.

[AnneHaynes]

I just lost my sitelinks! I'm soooo upset! The only thing I did different to my site, is extend my domain annehaynes.com for 9 years....

[AussieWebmaster]

Yeah the ups and downs on this are hard to totally work out

[jasonspalace]

to anne:
when you renewed your site for 9 nine years did you change registrars, hosting providers, or platforms? If you did, I am sure you will get them back sooner or later. Considering that it's been a week since you posted, and they still haven't returned (per a search right now for Anne Haynes on Google), my insight on the matter (in the event that you did one or more of the above) would be that you had unlucky timing (IE: you transfer your domain and change your hosting plan moving your site from a dallas based IP to a new york one, google still pulls from the records that point to dallas, finds 0 sitelinks, drops them all, now you have to wait for their next run to get them back). Guess we'll see...

[Chris Boggs]

The second article in this series, dealing with how to get or change Google sitelinks, is up. Looking forward to some more stories of testing these!

CB

[chris1]

I didn't realize you could block pages from being listed as sitelinks in Google Webmaster Central. Thanks for the tip, guys.

[Troy Lightfield]

Thanks for the information guys. I didn't know that one could block particular pages either. Looks like Google's current "automated" approach grabs the first 5-8 links on your page and uses them. Hopefully blocking will encourage them to move to the next link?.? Anyone have info on that theory?

[Dan01]

Oh great, something new to work on. LOL I have to figure out how to change the sitelinks for my site.

[jimbeetle]

Looks like Google's current "automated" approach grabs the first 5-8 links on your page and uses them. Hopefully blocking will encourage them to move to the next link?.? Anyone have info on that theory?

If only it were that simple ;-). There have been discussions about this since it was first introduced as it is not that straightforward. There are other factors in the mix (backlinks, toolbar data, search query + click through data are a few that have been mentioned). But as always, nobody really knows for sure.

[Troy Lightfield]

Thanks jimbeetle!

[Dan01]

I just went to webmaster tools and checked on it. It appears to be automated still. You can block some pages from the sitemap, but according to Google they will not appear on the search results for 90 days.

I had five sitemap links and only two were relevant. The rest went to specific articles and not menu items.

It is probably a good idea to check with the webmaster tools from time to time. I noticed that for some reason my site was not verified and there were errors in the sitemap. I quickly corrected the situation using the same verification file and then had them check my sitemap again.

I suggest everyone check on their webmaster tools regularly. Here is the link:

https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/dashboard?hl=en