Sitelinks

Sitelinks are additional links that Google displays below a search result to give users direct access to important subpages of a website. Google introduced them in 2006.

They help searchers get directly to the page they are interested in – for example a particular category, the contact page or the customer account.

The different types of sitelinks

Google has repeatedly changed how sitelinks are displayed over the years. Today, there are several variants.

Paid sitelinks

In Google Ads, sitelinks can be defined as an asset (formerly sitelink extension): advertisers determine the link text, description and target page. Unlike organic sitelinks, they have full control.

Organic sitelinks

Organic sitelinks appear above all for searches for a brand or company. Google then shows several links to important subpages below the top result.

Individual sitelinks

For other queries, individual sitelinks sometimes appear directly below a result. They lead to other pages of the same website or to a specific section within a page.

Sitelinks search box (discontinued)

Google used to show a search box for some brand searches, allowing users to use a website's search directly. Google discontinued this feature worldwide in November 2024; the associated structured markup has had no effect since.

Why sitelinks are useful

Sitelinks are a gain for website owners: your search result takes up much more space, stands out from competitors and leads users more quickly to the information they want. This generally increases the click-through rate.

How to influence sitelinks

Organic sitelinks can't be defined or edited directly; Google selects them automatically. However, the following website optimisation measures increase the likelihood that Google will show useful sitelinks:

• Clear structure: a logical hierarchy of main and subpages helps Google recognise the most important pages

• Internal linking: important pages should be linked prominently with descriptive, unambiguous link texts

• Noindex: pages that shouldn't appear in search results can be set to noindex – they then won't appear as sitelinks either

• Meaningful page titles: Google often uses page titles as sitelink text – they should therefore be short, clear and distinguishable

Criticism and limitations

Google doesn't show sitelinks for every search result, only when it considers them helpful – above all for brand searches. Critics point out that website owners have hardly any influence on which pages appear; sometimes Google shows less relevant pages such as the legal notice or login. In addition, the sitelinks of the first position take up a lot of space, pushing other results further down. For brand searches, this is an advantage for the brand owner and a disadvantage for competitors bidding or ranking for the same brand name. In Google Ads, on the other hand, sitelinks can be used deliberately to take users directly to suitable categories or offers.