Google SiteLinks have been drawing a lot of attention these days. Google has been a lot more generous in last few months in allotting them to even half-decent sites. SiteLinks used to be rare, but this is not the case anymore, you can see them frequently on one-two word phrases.
Google SiteLinks are important as I discussed; both to users and webmasters in a great way. In the last few I have done a lot of reading on SiteLinks, taken a lot of cases and analysed them, and more importantly I have documented the research.
I have seen a lot of inconsistencies in the way these SiteLinks are being allotted. Many a times they surprise me with their absence and at times with their presence. I am now going to present the first part of "Common Myths About Google SiteLinks".
Myth1: A website needs to be old enough to be eligible for SiteLinks.
Not at all, I have seen SiteLinks being allotted to a mere 6 months old site. However, the age factor still matters depending on the level of competitiveness in the niche. I give you an example, my friend’s blog TroubleFixers.com launched in December 2007, has already gotten SiteLinks, its niche is fairly competitive. Myth1 goes in dustbin.
Myth2: SiteLinks stay.
Wrong, we should never take them for granted once they are allotted, I saw a lot of cases where SiteLinks were lost. E.g. Only4sms.com used to have SiteLinks uptil May-end, I am not seeing them now.
Myth3: I’ll get SiteLinks if I get heaps of incoming links.
Had that been the case, I’d be seeing SiteLinks on a lot of sites that I know which have a lot of good quality links in good volumes. Sitelinks are allotted taking a lot of factors into consideration. Links alone aren’t sufficient. Those ‘a lot of factors’ may include but not limited to:
There can’t be any certain common threshhold requirement with incoming links. I’ll emphasize again on the point of competitiveness. A high competitive niche will require more links, this is for sure. But links alone can’t produce SiteLinks.
Myth4: A site needs to be W3C compliant.
This is the most stupid myth. Most of the site are not W3C compliant usually. Google spiders are intelligent enough to understand even cruelly written code. W3C compliancy can in no way be any eligibility criteria for SiteLinks. However, I strongly recommend you to have your code clean enough and at best W3C compliant because in SEO every minute factor counts.
That’s all for this post, I am still working on more points. Will post more of them in Part-2 of this series. I hope we’ll bust a lot of myths about SiteLinks.
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Good informative post busting myths.
I really like the live example u gave which helps as a proof for busting Myths.
[...] discussed some common myths in part-1 of Common Myths about Google SiteLinks. Here I am with more of them. Coming straight to the point this [...]
these tips really helped in understanding lot more things…thanks for sharing
[...] (or may be not) part of the series - Common Myths About Google SiteLinks. You can check out the first part and second part before reading this one. You may also like to read about Google SiteLinks in [...]