Hello fellow Bloggers and Happy new year!

Sorry for the delay but I have about 5 SEO and SEM projects going right now. So it looks like 2008, is starting off as a great year for me. With that said, let's get on with a great question one of my clients asked me today.

The question was this:

When you do a search on Google, sometimes you see some of the search results with additions links to pages within that website.

What is this? Can you pay for this service? Or how do you optimize for it?



Here's my response and a little information as to what this is.

Sitelinks are extra links that appear below some search results in Google. They serve as shortcuts to help users quickly navigate to the important pages on your site.

Selecting pages to appear as sitelinks is a completely automated process. Our algorithms parse the structure and content of websites and identify pages that provide fast navigation and relevant information for the user's query. Since our algorithms consider several factors to generate sitelinks, not all websites have them.

Now, Google's Webmaster Tools let you view potential sitelinks for your site and block the ones you don't want to appear in Google search results. Because sitelinks are extremely useful in helping users navigate your site, we don't typically recommend blocking them. However, occasionally you might want to exclude a page from your sitelinks, for example: a page that has become outdated or unavailable, or a page that contains information you don't want emphasized to users. Once you block a page, it won't appear as a sitelink for 90 days unless you choose to unblock it sooner. It may take a week or so to remove a page from your sitelinks, but we are working on making this process faster.

To view and manage your sitelinks, go to the Webmaster Tools Dashboard and click the site you want. In the left menu click Links, then click Sitelinks.

To summerize,

The links shown below some sites in the Google search results, called sitelinks, are meant to help users navigate your site. Google's systems analyze the link structure of your site to find shortcuts that will save users time and allow them to quickly find the information they're looking for.
Google only shows sitelinks for results "when they" think they'll be useful to the user. If the structure of your site doesn't allow Google's algorithms to find good sitelinks, or Google doesn't think that the sitelinks for your site are relevant for the user's query, they won't show them.

At the moment, sitelinks are completely automated. We're always working to improve our sitelinks algorithms, but there can be no guarantee that your indexed page or pages will have these additional sitelinks. Also not that sitelinks are usually associated with heavier traffic-sites.

Have a great day!

Regards,

Matt your SEO blogmaster.............