Google's new sitelinks feature will make top results more prominent, while pushing other results further down. Image: Google Search Blog

A Google search results page for many brands has long contained an additional list of links from the same domain. Today, the sitelinks feature is expanding significantly. These changes will provide expanded visibility for some sites, while pushing others below the fold.

The new sitelinks features

The Google Inside Search blog today outlined the latest changes to the sitelinks feature of search engine results. The look of these new results is different. Google has also altered the algorithm for determining sitelinks with the goal of creating more comprehensive sitelink groupings and eliminating duplicate search results on later pages.

The effect of sitelinks on clicks

The new, expanded sitelinks on the first search engine results page has one very noticeable effect. On many major brand-name search inquiries, sitelinks will push all other search results down the results page, which means most won’t be seen without scrolling down. On normal search engine result pages without sitelinks, the first result accounts for more than 56 percent of the clicks. When the second result is below the fold, the number of clicks on the second result goes from about 13 percent to about 7 percent.

Taking advantage of sitelinking

There is no sure way to get your site listed with the Google sitelinks feature. The Google algorithm determines which site shows up first on search results and therefore is eligible to get sitelinks. However, there are certain things you can do to encourage Google to list your site with sitelinks:

• Have a recognizable brand name, and do everything you can to get listed as the No. 1 result for a search for your brand name.
• Make sure search engine spiders can easily crawl your website.
• Have a site structure and sitemap that is clear and easy to understand with strong landing pages.
• Complete your meta information, including descriptions that can easily be chopped to five or six words and still make sense.

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Econsultancy
SEO Researcher