The authority on search engines!

Fig 1: Google 1 Line Sitelink

Google Sitelinks, for those who are not yet familiar, is a group of links displayed under a search result, that Google has deemed are important to a site as either being highly requested/trafficked or that it considers very relative to a particular site. Sitelinks usually appear for one particular site that it sees as being extremely relevant to a query. It only happens for the most relevant site to a query, usually occurring for the first result that shows up in the SERPS.

If a site has a sitelink, it’s a good indicator that the site is doing well for the particular term it’s showing up for. The more links that appear for a site, the higher the authority it has, with a max of up to 8 sitelinks appearing. These links usually appear slightly smaller across several lines under the result and can even be moderated through the Google webmaster console.

However recently, Google has started experimenting with single line sitelinks (fig 1) that appear in addition to the standard multi-line sitelinks. The single line sitelinks don’t appear for the first result, and as seen in the example can appear for results that are secondary or even tertiary.

What Does This Mean?

Well single sitelinks appear for not only brand names (eg: site titles), but also for search queries, which means that sites that rank very well for terms may start showing single-lined sitelinks. If a site has sitelinks, it’s fair to say that it will probably recieve more attention from a user who is browsing through and notices more weighting being given to a particular result.

I can see SEO extending to including the refinement of these terms and sitelink optimization to increase the conversion rate of searchers to actual visitors. But the big downside is that you really need to dominate the field in order to start getting sitelinks for a search term, as only one result from the SERPs will receive the sitelink. So unfortunately you’re still going to have to convince Google that you are an authorithy in that particular niche before they start delivering up sitelinks for you.

To reiterate, the main difference between Multi-line Sitelinks and Single Line Sitelinks is that the former appears mostly for brands and site titles, while the latter can apply to titles and to relevance to particular keywords. A multi-line sitelink can come about for the name of your site because Google has deduced from the anchor tags on your backlinks that you are the best result for that name/keyword overall. While with single line sitelinks, Google has to assume that you are currently the best result for that particular keyword. I have a strong suspicion that single-line sitelinks are more dynamic and will change overtime as opposed to multi-line, which generally never fade away once given.