What Are Google Sitelinks and Why Are They So Important?

Google's sitelinks are the additional links that are displayed below some search results. Recently, Google has made some changes that strongly emphasize sites that have sitelinks.

As you can see in the screenshot above, if your site holds the first spot for a Google search and has sitelinks, it owns quite a bit of the most valued real estate on the internet. Previously, sitelinks were much smaller and did not contain any descriptive text.

So how do you get sitelinks? You can request them from Google in your Webmaster Tools, but there is no guarantee that Google will use them. And if you don't suggest pages, they may choose some anyway. According to Google Webmaster Help: "Our systems analyze the link structure of your site to find shortcuts that will save users time and allow them to quickly find the information they're looking for. We only show sitelinks for results when we think they'll be useful to the user."

Once again, Google is emphasizing the user experience. This move means that they are more confident than ever that their algorithm is returning good search results, and the first position in a search result just became much more valuable. So if you can't guarantee that Google will give you sitelinks, what can you do to help your site reach that number one spot? It all starts with content...really interesting, relevant, and unique content. Changes like this are indicators to attorneys who want to succeed on the web that they need to step it up or be left behind.

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