Google’s John Mueller answered a question about the strategy used to make certain pages appear as sitelinks in Google’s search results.
Mueller provided an answer that closely matches what the official Google Search Central documentation on sitelinks says, but adds a little more nuance than what the official documentation says.
That said, Google’s new tightly controlled SEO office hours format is starting to show some limitations.
How do I display pages as sitelinks?
The questioner wanted to know how to influence Google to show a specific page in sitelinks.
Sitelinks are additional links from a web page that appear in search results, so one search result contains multiple links.
“Is there a strategy for getting the desired pages to appear as sitelinks in Google’s search results?”
Mueller first explained what sitelinks are:
“So, a sitelink is an additional result that appears below the search results, usually a one-line link to another part of the website.”
Next, we discussed how Google generates sitelinks.
“And there are no meta tags or structured data that can be used to force sitelinks to appear.
Additionally, our system tries to understand what is actually relevant or relevant to users when they are looking at this one web page. “
Finally, Mueller provides recommendations on what to do with sitelinks.
“And to that end, our recommendations are basically to have a good website structure, have clear internal links so you can easily recognize which pages are related to those pages, and have a clear website that you can use. It’s about having a nice title and show type: as a sitelink.
Besides, there is no guarantee that this will appear as such.
But it helps us understand what is involved.
When it makes sense to show sitelinks, it’s much easier to actually choose sitelinks based on that information. “
The answer is similar to Google’s official documentation
Previously, live questions and answers were allowed in the SEO Office Hours format. It’s not anymore.
Google presents pre-screened questions with pre-screened answers.
This new format allows Mueller to pre-select questions and give him time to research suitable answers.
The answer Mueller provided is good, but it also highlights the shortcomings of Google’s new Q&A format. Google’s new Q&A format feels scripted and safe in that the information closely reflects Google’s official documentation.
On the downside, the new format feels like Mueller is googling the answer and paraphrasing what’s on Google’s developer page.
This is the content of Google’s Search Central page.
“We will only show sitelinks in results if we believe they will be useful to our users. If the structure of your site prevents Google’s algorithms from finding the right sitelinks, or if your site’s sitelinks do not meet a user’s query. Sitelinks will not appear if Google determines they are not relevant.
- Make sure the text you use for page titles and headings is informative, relevant, and compact.
- Create a logical site structure that is easy for users to navigate, and try to link important pages from other related pages.
- Make sure your internal link anchor text is concise and relevant to the linked page.
- Avoid repetition in your content. “
The documentation on sitelinks on the Google Search Central page is almost identical to the answer provided by John Mueller.
This is not meant to be interpreted as a criticism of the new format, but rather to draw attention to the fact that the new format is somewhat preservative in that it is not true Q&A.
It’s like a Q&A theater.
What’s missing is the human banter between members of the search community and the follow-up questions that sometimes lead to surprising spontaneous responses from Mueller.
The previous style was characterized by spontaneous out-of-the-box questions that weren’t always documented in Google’s official documentation.
Yes, the old format caused some users to break the rules against asking why the site wasn’t ranked.
So it’s understandable why Google would want to try a different format.
However, Muller’s ability to unravel the underlying problem isSite issuesWe provided useful answers by turning the question into something useful to the wider search community, and by turning a seemingly unhelpful question into one that provided insight.
The problem wasn’t that people kept asking, “What’s wrong with my site?”
Old-style problems are likely because people didn’t know what was wrong with their site and didn’t know how to ask questions. Was the problem technical? Was the problem content quality?
Mueller sometimes addressed these low-quality questions with general advice that was still useful.
Will the new format suit you?
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Watch John Mueller answer the question at the 16:01 minute mark.
Featured Image: Screenshot from YouTube.com/GoogleSearchCentral, June 2022
