Google sitelinks are not only for branded terms
Google announces the 12-pack sitelink update
Since Google announced the 12-pack sitelinks update most enthusiasts happily accepted the update. The change was promising more clarity, quality and visibility towards trusted websites.
Here is how it got introduced:
When you’re searching, you often have a specific task in mind, like figuring out which exhibits are showing at a nearby museum. Despite this narrow goal, people often start with a broad query.
It turns out that sitelinks are quite useful because they can help predict which sections of the site you want to visit. Even if you didn’t specify your task in the query, sitelinks help you quickly navigate to the most relevant part of the site, which is particularly handy for large and complex websites.
Very useful on Branded terms
So if I am to search for ICA I will get the following result:
Which is very useful for me, as I was actually looking for the films ICA is showing and the sitelinks do include the films of the ICA.
What about non-Brand, generic keywords and queries?
Since its launch many SEO consultants expressed their worries on whether Google will keep this on Brand terms and questions rose on what will happen if we start seeing sitelinks on generic terms.
Sitelinks are also offered on Generic search results
This morning, on my twitter stream, I noticed this post from Artur Jach.
First time I’ve seen new Google sitelinks for a non-brand keyword search
And here we are…. Search Google UK for coaches and notice that nationalexpress is getting the benefit of 6 sitelinks and ruling the 1st page of results.
Similar results appear if we try to search for trains and tube
It is official. Sitelinks aim to offer clarity, quality and visibility towards trusted websites on any keyword those trusted websites seem to be experts on and not only on their Branded terms.
I am very curious to see if Google will offer sitelinks to hotmail for the keyword email as hotmail seems to be the leading authority on that keyword!


















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