Okay okay, we all know Google updated the toolbar pageRank. We also know that some pretty high trafficked, reputable sites saw no change in their PR. So they must suck in the eyes of Google right? They must not be relevant in search you say. WRONG. So Lisa, Ms Smarty Pants, what’s the real measure of site reputation then?
Google Sitelinks
First and foremost, the correct term IS sitelinks, not site links. Although you will find results for both, you want to be accurate, right?! I thought so.
In a nutshell, Google sitelinks are considered deluxe listings. In 2005, Google began experimenting with an enhanced listing in natural search results. The desired outcome was to increase a site’s visibility, reputation and provide more traffic to these sites.
The Google algorithms award sitelinks to the most relevant, trust worthy sites. Therefore when we come upon a search result with these sitelinks, we can be sure of the fact that this site is one of the best.
As is typical with all Google algorithms, they don’t cough up the formula. You know better than that!! But what Google does say about sitelinks lets me know that some of those sites that got no PR bump, are still top notch in Google’s eyes. Here is what they have to say:
Google’s sitemap guru, Vanessa Fox, wrote a blog entry titled Information about Sitelinks. She explained that Sitelinks are generated automatically, and that Sitelinks are designed to provide searchers with more valuable search results.
We only show sitelinks for results when we think they’ll be useful to the user. If the structure of your site doesn’t allow our algorithms to find good sitelinks, or we don’t think that the sitelinks for your site are relevant for the user’s query, we won’t show them.
Only the best sites seem to get Sitelinks. They appear to be awarded based on a few factors including site navigation. As the links that appear under your site in search will ultimately be shortcuts to pages in your site. Let me show you what I mean. Below is the actual search result returned for Traffic Generation Cafe.
Traffic Generation Cafe | Generate Targeted Website Blog Traffic
www.trafficgenerationcafe.com/ – Cached
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About Ana
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More results from trafficgenerationcafe.com »
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I am using one of my favorite blogs particularly due to the fact that there was no PR bump, however, TGC was awarded 8 sitelinks. HUGE vote of confidence from Google with regards to trust, relevancy and ease of site use. Obviously, the more you have, the more information Google finds to be of value.
I have seen sites with a PR of 3 and up that have 0 sitelinks in search results. Imagine how much organic traffic will be delivered to Traffic Generation Cafe due simply to the short cut links provided by Google? Ana has to do nothing special to reap the rewards of these links. Well, aside from all the hard work already put into place. 🙂
If you go to TGC home page, you will see top pick posts, most commented, etc. These posts are actually returned as sitelinks for this blog. When you look at the page, you can easily see why. They are some of the most commented on, most shared posts on the blog. Social proof. So, indeed Google is returning to us the most relevant results.
I read an article on how to get Google sitelinks and I must say, that although the article is from the initiation period, it is still very relevant today. Everything I read held true for Traffic Generation Cafe, so I trust the information presented. The only thing I feel missing in the article is the inclusion of social media/social reputation.
The Bottom Line
The bottom line for me personally is that PR is a nice indication, but I put my trust in other metrics. Sitelinks are a darn good place to start. Considering Google themselves considers these “the best of the best” than why would I think any less? If you want a tad more info on Google’s take, read this:
My blog doesn’t have any of these yet, but I guarantee it will. And yours can too. Read what the big G has to say about them, and continue learning and implementing. That goes for every avenue of your online business.
Your turn.
- Do you think sitelinks are a better indicator of relevance than PR?
- Have you even noticed them before?
- Does your site return sitelinks in SERPS?
Please share the knowledge and do the happy dance! 🙂
Very informative tips. I always believed that sitelinks plays a significant role when it comes to SEO.
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Google is such an intelligent company! it would be amazing to work with them and learn from the experience. I’ve never done anything with blog engage to help with sitelinks but they managed to know what were most important to show.
Personally I love Google and they have brought me a lot of traffic and money with adsense. not so much anymore seeing I share the revenue but I still make some money.
Your AdSense sharing is a fantastic thing for the community though Brian! And the fact that you have Sitelinks just goes to show you know what you’re doing and that you have a quality site!
Lisa
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Yes site links are a better indicator of relevance than PR. Page Rank is broken, it is not relevant anymore. I don’t mean Google internal algorithm PR, but Google toolbar PR. Google itself admit that in a recent post! I think site links is Google way of showing trust and relevancy and ease of use of your site to the searchers until they can figure out how to fix there broken toolbar PR.
Exactly Anteek! I agree Toolbar PR is no longer a valid indicator of relevance.
Cheers,
Lisa
My site, http://www.BlogWithMom.com was launched late November. I couldn’t wait until Google updated PR and I didn’t get anything this time around. Very irritating, I am still stuck at a zero PR. I received one sitelink and work very hard on this site – maybe next time. I do think I have an issue with keywords. I need to find better keyword matches and maybe I can boost my traffic.
That’s a great achievement to get a sitelink, so kudos to you! I think PR is not as important as it used to be, however search engine traffic is still the way to go.
Keyword research is crucial and this post might help you with that 🙂
Let me know if I can help in any way!
Cheers,
Lisa
I have over 4 blogspot blogs and all of them got a sitelinka and PR but my wordpress blog don’t get nothing. Still more to learn on Google way of thinking.
Awesome!! You are doing something right in Google’s eyes! 🙂
Welcome to my blog and I appreciate your feedback!
Lisa
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My site doesn’t have any site links, but I get 40% traffic from search engines, so I am not complaining! I realized that I hadn’t submitted an updated sitemap until after the PR update. It had been outdated since November.
On a different note, I did get a PR boost, and that did make me happy no matter what! 🙂
Tia:
good to see you here…and you got a bump in PR because you are a rock star chick blogger on a mission!! 🙂 People of course want to link to you and visit you and in the big G’s mind….you are it!!! 🙂
Congrats on your bump!
Lisa
My site has also received the first sitelinks on the last Page Rank update. Indeed I think that Google tend to have more trust in the sites and the content if you are reworded with them. But also a strong factor that influence this is how well is your site interlinked.
Exactly! The more I read about this, the more importance I see placed on our internal linking strategy.
Thanks for your feedback!
Lisa
I must admit I was pretty disappointed with the PR update. I was PR2 before and PR2 after. Since I got PR2 in about 4 months after doing very little and really started working hard just a little before the apr 2010 update, I thought I would get a nice bump when they finally updated, considering all the backlinking, articles, social networking etc. that I did.
Getting no PR bump saddened me. 🙁 But I just looked at this and I guess I have 5 sitelinks. (I hadn’t realized it) PR would still be nice, since it is a metric people judge, but I feel a little better now,
thanks…
Wonderful Steve! I know the PR would be great to see because even though a lot of people say it means nothing….many people still look at it as success. That’s fantastic that have 5 sitelinks, the max is 8…so Google knows you’re relevant and well navigated.
Have you looked into mozRank yet Steve? They update almost every month and your home page has a 5.06 mR. They are pretty comparable to PR according to their algorithms.
So kudos to you!! 🙂
Lisa
No, I haven’t checked into MOZrank yet. That is good to know. It seems like these sitelinks are really sensitive too, unfortunatley. I took my site down for a couple of days with my recent site virus problems. Now that it is all cleared and back up…I lost all the sitelinks. What a pain! Hopefully they come back now once Google respiders all the links. We shall see.
Steve:
I know you can access the sitelinks from webmaster tools…did they disappear from your account there?
Lisa,
My blog is about 8 months old. During the first few months I was obssessed at getting a PageRank. But everything I tried did not work – I still have 0/10 PageRank. I’m wondering if I ever need that to get my blog to the next level. I’m sure SiteLinks will help also.
But I dropped running after those. I will just focus on producing content – quality content.
I’m finding my links in Google searches so I’m fine with just for now 🙂
Hi Marlon:
Thanks for coming by my place! I did the same exact thing. I had ranking obsessive disorder 🙂 The more I learned, the better my content became and the less I was concerned with PR.
Yes it would be cool to see the little green pixie dust but I am learning to measure performance with other standards. MozRank will also give you a very good indication of where your site stands.
Thanks for your feedback Marlon and hope to see you back soon!
Lisa
Hi Lisa
Good way to check if you have sitelinks is via Google Webmaster Tools under “site configuration”.
My site has PR 3 and I was hoping to get to 4, but no change.
According to the Webmaster tools, I have sitelinks to 3 articles so I’m happy with that.
My first visit here Lisa and it looks as though you have built up a great community. I recognise a few faces but others are new.
I’ll check out some of your other articles and click a few links.
BTW – appreciate your visit to easyP and your super comment.
Hi Keith:
Welcome to my place! 🙂 I love “meeting” new people and seeing new faces. You have a great site so it’s no surprise you have PR. Kudos!! 🙂
And great job on the sitelinks…means you got grit (and dont we all love grit?)
Cheers,.
Lisa
I never thought about sitelinks versus page rank but now that I am reflecting on it, you make a great point. In fact, my own sites are a great example. On one of my blog I am a pr 3 and have 4 sitelinks and my other is a pr4 with 0 sitelinks.
Hi Dan:
Kudos on your links AND PR!!! I swear it’s all a mystery to me 🙂
Thanks for stopping by and feel free to come by anytime!
:Lisa
I must admit, sitelinks is new to me and kudos to Ana for achieving the maximum number of 8. Hmm, I’m jealous now. Thank you for this priceless piece of information.
Hi Anne:
Welcome to my blog! Yes Ana has done well to achieve those impressive sitelinks. I have complete faith we can do the same!! 🙂
Cheers.
Lisa
I had no idea I had 8 sitelinks, Lisa – that’s actually the maximum… Thanks for doing a quick analysis of my blog and, I am sure, sending me some traffic – it’s sooo much appreciated!
Ana
Anytime Ana! Well deserved sitelinks might I add! 🙂
Cheers,
Lisa
I have been doing a lot of research for my blog, and I have ended up back at your site several times. Thanks for all your time!
Jennifer:
Welcome to my blog and I am so glad I can help! If you ever need anything, feel free to contact me!
Cheers,
Lisa
Man I would like to get me some of them sitelinks. Its kinda like a medal that Google pins on you, a pat on the back for being super cool at what you do….sort of.
Cool post Lisa 🙂
Totally!! We can call it the cool kids club!
Hi Lisa,
I haven’t given any attention on sitelinks before reading this post. If speak frankly I had no idea about what is sitelink and its importance.
And after reading your complete post I must admit that sitelink is great way to check reputation and importance of any site.
Really great post.
Hi Priya:
Welcome to my blog. And I appreciate your feedback!
cheers,
Lisa
Hi Lisa! GREAT post. I’m also no huge gigantic believer in Google PR. I didn’t know much about these sitelinks things, but this is some pretty cool information! Gonna check it out for my own site. 😛 Thanks!
Glad you liked it Elise!! Yea, PR is crap…..toolbar PR anyway!
Thanks for coming by!
Lisa
For you to get that many in such s short period of time, is amazing. it took me forever to get them on another blog, and I son
think I had the full8
Thats because you’re a rockstar Dennis! I wish I had them…but I can see why Ana’s blog did indeed receive them. Im hopin in time they will appear!
Oh wow haha, I just realized that I seem to have been awarded with 8 – some of them are good, others are a bit meh; maybe I’ll fiddle with them in Webmaster tools (I remember seeing an option in there to play with these).
Thanks for reminding me about these haha – I wonder how much this will change the overall search engine traffic; I mean, you’d have to have people searching for your name but still really cool to show off.
Hi Murray:
yea, i think they are pretty cool.. 🙂 Obviously you got yo stuff together so kudos!! I think your sight has been awarded the maximum!!
Cheers,
Lisa
Nice! The mysterious sitelinks revealed at last – I learned about this from Leo Di Milo a few months back. I had no clue then what the term meant, but he explained it nicely (then he torched his old blog posts, so couldn’t give you that link).
It’s an indicator of good on-page, site-wide SEO like you mention. Sadly, I didn’t start my blog off that way and have the category conundrum – do you re-organize 104 blog posts into nice categories and then risk messing things up, or just leave it as is?
My blog does show sitelinks as it is, but what if it didn’t? How would you amend it?
James:
See, I knew you had teeth and would know all about this!! 🙂
I know when I started this blog, it was a mess. I had no SEO knowledge, duplicate content issues…a hot mess. I have redone everything and kept all my old material….I use the seo ultimate plug in which allows me to tag my posts and helps with redirects, blah blah blah. So, I have put some articles in categories and redirected some others. As for how to get the illusive sitelinks? That I am still in search of!
Thanks for stopping by James,
Lisa
Yes! Hahah I’ve seen these things in Google before but have never known what they were or how they got there. A quick search for my blog shows that I have sitelinks, too 🙂 4 of ’em. Yessss.
And it’s a good thing I did search for it, because I realized how much my meta description sucks, so I just updated it 🙂
And yeah, my blog also saw no PR update.
I think sitelinks are better than PR because 99% of the people searching for stuff online still have no freaking idea of what PageRank is. But if they see those extra little links in there, they’ll notice.
Thanks for the great post, Lisa!
Tristan:
GOOD FOR YOU!!! You totally deserve that and your site engagement shows that fact!! Kudos kudos kudos !
Lisa
Hey Wooty Woot,
Thanks for this breakdown. So frickin’ informative!
As you may have guessed I wasn’t too familiar with sitelinks and how they were generated. Just visited the Google link you left to try and learn a bit more.
It was you who first told me that my PR had been bumped to a 3 before I noticed it for myself :).
I do have a question though:
When I plug in my blog’s name to Google I get random articles of mine but obviously no sitelinks (not much I can do about that right now) I don’t even get the tagline or what my site is about next to my name.
Please forgive the silly question as I suck with all these techie things – but is there any way I can fix that from my end so that next to nittyGriddy it at least says what it is? My logo is actually an image along with the tagline and not something you can click on – does that affect it?
Thanks a lot for explaining all this Lisa. But most importantly for clarifying that it’s sitelinks (one word) and not site links. Hahaha
Cheers
Oh my wooty woot partner! I am so glad you now know it’s one word. I feel better. 🙂
As for your question, it almost sounds as if Google has not cached your site yet. (which would be odd.) I did a Google search on your blog name and yep…you’re right about how it returns. Let me find the answer for ya!
Going to BRING IT! now.
Lisa
Hola Wooty 😉
Please don’t trouble yourself with that. I don’t want you to go out of your way. But I certainly appreciate you suggesting to help out. Was just curious on why that was and if I could do anything about it – but then again – I don’t do much in the back offices of WP lol.
Thank you again so much for taking the time to look into that Lisa. You are too kind and awesome of course ;).
Ciao
Hey Lisa
I had seen sitelinks but was not sure what they were to be honest, now I do thanks to you.
Not saying I particularly care about getting them, but would be nice, Alex
Hi Alex:
I think it would be cool too. Jus another form of validation ya know?
Lisa
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Hi Lisa
I didn’t know about sitelinks. Thanks for the information. I haven’t bothered about PR as some of the sites with high PR to me seem not up to much other than heaps of ads! Other sites I visit with lower PR provide information I find helpful.
This is something new to me, so like you will continue with white hat and providing content-rich posts and organic traffic is definitely the way to go; especially with potential customers 😉
Thanks for sharing this with us Lisa. Appreciated.
Patricia Perth Australia
Hi Patricia
Although I think we all like referring traffic, I know I sure wouldnt be upset with more organic traffic! As you said, especially for potential customers!
Thanks for stopping by!
Lisa
Yup Lisa,
I recently came to know about this notion when Google updated page ranks of sites, which for most sites was a great disappointment. However, many good sites have been rewarded the credit of sitelinks.
Like TFB, my blog also awaits this credit 🙂
Jane.
Hi Jane:
I think you’re doing a fantastic job and are on your way!! I know for me, Im looking at sitelinks for my site rather than PR.
As always, a pleasure to have you here
Lisa
Lisa,
I’m gonna have to admit that this is way over my head here, but very informative. 😉 Thanks 4 sharing!
Hi Jennifer:
That made me giggle because as I was writing it became over my own head!! LOL..thanks for giving your feedback though, I appreciate it!!
Cheers,
Lisa
I make sure I get all 8 sitelinks on all sites I manage. Once you understand how to do it it’s really a sinch.. I’m surprised more people don’t talk about it, because it really does make your site look much better and increase traffic to the sitelink pages.
Thx for writing about it, now everyone will be after them!, lol
Chris:
See, that’s why you’re the main man! You know the how to’s 🙂
I was surprised when I started looking into it that there was not more info out there in regards to them. So is 8 the max a site can receive?
Cheers,
Lisa
Yep 8 is the max. And through Google webmaster tools you can chose to block some that Google is showing if you want to try to get other ones showing instead.
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Dan Cristo and I are working on something that will make google irrelevant 🙂 OK, Im only kinda joking.
More I get into SEO more I dont care…did that ever happen to you?
Interesting article none the less…not sure what to do with it yet, but Im glad I read it 🙂
P.S. So its “sitelinks” is it? huh…good to know 🙂
Same here, the more I know about SEO the less I care.
I am kinda tired of everyone guessing what Google thinks so I have decided to do what ever I want no matter what people think Google thinks.
Seems to be working for me so I guess I will care even less, lol.
Nice post though, Lisa, as always.
P.S. Knowing Dino and Dan Cristo, I am sure they are up to no good!
Hey you two:
I guess I can explain it for myself this way. The more I learn about SEO, the better I feel about what I am doing and how I go about it. White hat all the way baby. I care about Google in so much as desiring organic results. There is no doubting follwing some of their guidelines WILL bring organic traffic to you….and for monetization purposes, I good with that. As for PageRank and domain authority, not much of a concern of mine. My traffic/social rep/brand constantly improves each month and I do things my way, not necessarily the Big G’s way!! 🙂
Okay thats all for now,
Lisa
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