I just searched for my brand name (PPC Ian) on Google and noticed that my organic sitelinks have a brand new look and feel! Check out the screenshot at the end of this post. I’m not sure if this is a beta test or a permanent change, but one thing’s for sure: the new sitelinks rock!
Google Organic Sitelinks: New Versus Old
You may remember from my post Happy Birthday To PPC Ian that I just started seeing sitelinks for PPC Ian around October, 2010. As you can see in the image in that post, the sitelinks were just links with no surrounding text. Moreover, I just had four of them.
More Brand Name Traffic
The new sitelinks that I just noticed today are much more pronounced. There are eight links in total and there is descriptive text below each of the links. My organic listing occupies a lot more space in general. Whenever someone types in my brand name, I’m going to capture a lot more traffic because this enhanced listing with the new style sitelinks really pops. Even better, many of my organic sites that never had sitelinks before now do. With this change, I believe Google is also displaying sitelinks for more sites.
Between the new AdSense formats, the new AdWords mega titles, and these new organic sitelinks, Google is making serious progress through testing. Awesome work, Google!
Screenshot of Google Search Results © Google
Interesting stuff! Also I see the “you shared this” with your image on it as well… cool stuff Google!
Thanks so much for the comment, Dino! 🙂 Yeah, that “you shared this” is also really cool. Exciting stuff!
Ian, I see some fluctuation in the layout of these, maybe they are still messing with them.
Either way, nice find, I really like the new changes!
Jeremy,
You are right! I’ve been working all night and have noticed the fluctuation too after writing this post. Like the new “mega titles” in the top premium AdWords positions, I hope this sitelinks test sticks. Thank so much for the comment! 🙂
All the best,
Ian
Thanks for posting Ian! I have noticed it like Profit Addiction has too… I really haven’t looked into how I could make some site links come up like that… Is it something Google does that I could manipulate a little better?
Hi Ian,
Congrats on the sneak peek. I took a look at the organic sitelinks and it’s still coming up with the old version for me. I can see the real value coming through in the new look. Thanks for sharing.
Matt
Thanks so much for the comments, Darren and Matt! 🙂 I very much appreciate it! Darren, I don’t think there’s anything we can do at this point to get the new sitelinks to show up. It appears to be in beta testing mode, and hopefully will get rolled out to more traffic soon!
I have found this feature to be really annoying. A few times I have gotten excited thinking my site got to page one in the ranks, only to find out I didn’t. The only way I have found to turn them off is by logging out of my Google account and then do a search, but as soon as you log back in will return.
I am curious as to what the minimum requirement for Organic Site Links to appear in the SERPS, What was the count of
Total visitor traffic to date,
Months you had the site up
And Average daily organic visits
There must be something that tells Google hey..time to give this guy site links. Your thoughts?
Search Engine Man,
Thanks so mo much for visiting my blog and for the question! 🙂 This is a great question and one I don’t fully know the answer to. I will tell you that I have rarely seen sites less than one year old have organic sitelinks. Other factor’s I believe play a role:
-Monthly unique visitors (as you mentioned)
-Inbound links, page rank, and overall authority of the site as a brand (how much is the site name mentioned on the Internet).
What’s really strange is I also see Google take away organic sitelinks from time to time. I have sites that will have sitelinks one week and then they seem to disappear the next. That said, this could just be Google’s way of customizing search results for me as well (as a repeat searcher). Hope this helps. If you find out any more info on the topic, I’d really appreciate if you could report it here!
All the best,
Ian