What are sitelinks in Google?

Sitelinks, explained

Google's sitelinks documentation describes them as links from the same domain clustered under a text result. They typically appear when someone searches your brand name, showing shortcuts like Pricing, Login, Docs or Blog. Google says sitelinks are currently automated: its systems analyze your site's link structure to find shortcuts that save users time.

You can't choose them, but you can influence them. Google's best practices are to use informative, relevant and concise titles and headings on your pages, organize your site with a logical structure, link important pages from related pages, write concise and relevant anchor text for internal links, and avoid repetition across pages. To remove a page from sitelinks, Google says to remove the page or use noindex.

Google also says it only shows sitelinks when they're useful. If your structure doesn't let its algorithms find good sitelinks, or they aren't relevant to the query, it won't show them. New sites often don't get them until branded searches pick up, so a missing set of sitelinks in your first months isn't a sign that anything is wrong.

One related feature is gone: Google retired the sitelinks search box, the search field under some brand results, in late 2024. Markup for it is no longer needed for Google.

Why it matters for founders

Sitelinks make your brand result take more space and send searchers straight to the page they want. They follow naturally from a clear site structure.

Example

A search for your brand shows sitelinks for "Changelog" and "Old pricing". You redirect the old pricing page to the current one and give key pages clearer titles. Over time the sitelinks shift to Pricing, Docs and Launch.

Common mistakes

• Looking for a setting to add sitelinks.
• Vague or duplicate page titles that make poor sitelinks.
• Keeping outdated pages indexed that then show as sitelinks.
• Maintaining sitelinks search box markup for Google.