Google gives webmasters more control over Sitelinks

Google Sitelinks are designed to help Internet users navigate your website. They appear as sub-listings under the first result on the Google search page. For instance, typing in “direct marketing magazine” brings up the Direct magazine’s website along with eight internal site links including contact us, industry news and service pages.

“Selecting pages to appear as sitelinks is a completely automated process,” notes Google in a recent release post. “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.”

The recent update will allow webmasters to control which sitelinks are displayed. For various reasons – page under construction, exit links or perhaps out of date information – you may want to suppress particular areas of your site from sitelinks.

“Once you block a page, it won't appear as a sitelink for 90 days unless you choose to unblock it sooner,” announced Google. “It may take a week or so to remove a page from your sitelinks, but we are working on making this process faster."

Tags: Google, Sitelinks