Cosa Sono i Sitelink? Come Poterli Influenzare

Here is an example:

Sitelinks are one of the most common search features. They appear in 1.8% of the SERPs  in the Ahrefs database for the USA. Almost every brand term has sitelinks, and they also appear in many other queries, such as informational ones. In fact, nearly 67% of all organic keywords for Wikipedia.org contain sitelinks.

Let’s get into some of the most frequently asked questions such as:

• The different types of sitelinks
• Why you should have sitelinks
• How to influence sitelinks

Sitelinks have evolved over the years and are shown in very different ways. Google often changes things like the number of sitelinks displayed and the appearance of sitelinks in search results. You may see some sitelinks with sketches, with images, in carousel format, or ones that expand. Here are the different types of sitelinks that Google shows today.

Pay sitelink

In this article, I will mostly talk about organic sitelinks, but I have to point out that sitelink extensions  can appear in ads as well. The biggest difference between paid sitelinks and other types of sitelinks is that you can easily control the text and URLs that are shown in your ads.

Organic sitelinks

These sitelinks appear mostly in branded terms and contain up to 6 sitelinks to different pages of your website. They only appear in the first search result.

Organic Sitelinks Online

Inline sitelinks can appear in many types of queries. They usually contain up to 4 sitelinks but there is also a variation that shows multiple sitelinks in a carousel. These sitelinks can point to other pages on the site or jump directly to content within pages using snippet links (#).

Organic sitelink search boxes

A sitelink search box  allows users to search and go directly to the search results of a website or application. They appear only for brand terms and are automatically added by Google. You can help them understand your site better by adding the structured data  for a sitelink search box to your homepage, but it’s not required and it doesn’t make the sitelink search box more likely to appear in search results.

Many Ahrefs tools and reports contain sitelink filters as SERP features. For example, you can find keywords where you rank in  Ahrefs’ Site Explorer that also have sitelinks.

I sitelink ti danno maggior visibilità nei risultati di ricerca. I link aggiuntivi prendono maggior spazio e inoltre rendono il tuo sito maggiormente visibile rispetto agli altri risultati di ricerca.

Con i sitelink, stai anche aiutando gli utenti ad ottenere più velocemente i contenuti che probabilmente stavano cercando. Potrebbero essere contenuti dentro una pagina o pagine diverse. Per esempio, secondo i dati Google Search Console, il 12,9% dei click delle ricerca del brand “ahrefs” sono diretti ai sitelink e non alla homepage.

Non puoi modificare i sitelink mostrati nei risultati di ricerca organici. Sono generati da un algoritmo. Potevi chiederne la rimozione su Google Search Console, ma purtroppo Google ha rimosso questa opzione. Tuttavia, ci sono alcuni metodi per influenzarli.

1. Struttura del sito. L’architettura del tuo sito web gioca un ruolo nel modo in cui i sitelink sono mostrati. Se hai una architettura piatta, allora Google dovrà usare altri segnali per mostrare i sitelink.
2. Link interni. Come le tue pagine hanno collegamenti con altre pagine e gli anchor text utilizzati influenzeranno i sitelink. Lo stesso succede per la posizione dove i link sono localizzati nella pagina, e i breadcrumb.
3. Noindex. Pagine con noindex saranno rimosse dall’essere visualizzate nei sitelink. Anche se non è il miglior comando e lo consiglio raramente, è bene saperlo per i rari casi dove potrebbe essere utile.
4. Rimuovere la casella di ricerca sitelink. Se non vuoi mostrare la casella di ricerca per il tuo sito web, puoi aggiungere il seguente tag alla tua homepage:

<meta name="google" content="nositelinkssearchbox" />

1. Utilità e rilevanza. Pensa a cose diverse che sono utili per utenti e portano risultati rilevanti. 
   1. Hreflang. I tag hreflang possono aiutare Google a mostrare sitelink rilevanti basati sulle preferenze di lingua e località.
   2. Heading, and list of contents.  Many inline sitelinks have the same content as the page headings. In Ahrefs, above the useful headings we also include a list of content in our articles where it could add additional context.
   3. What people are looking for (maybe) . While I don’t think this has ever been confirmed, in many cases the terms of what people are looking for are highly correlated with the sitelinks shown. Many of the most searched terms on “ahrefs” are also those shown on sitelinks.

1. User signals (maybe) . A Bing patent  reveals they may be using click data for their version of sitelinks called Deep Links. I could say that it is possible, but it is not confirmed that Google can also use this data.

At Ahrefs, you can see the keywords that trigger sitelinks for your site, and which pages they show. Go to the report Keywords Organic  on Site Explorer  to Ahrefs, select “Sitelinks” from the drop down menu SERP feature, and activates the selection “Only link with the objective”.

If you believe that the results should not be what is shown, use the information described above to create changes that may impact the sitelinks shown.

Conclusions

Sitelinks offer more space occupied in the SERPs for websites and are useful for users. While there is no direct control for sitelinks, you can use the information described above to influence what will be shown on sitelinks and get new ones.

Questions? You can get them on Twitter .

Traduro by  Mauro Marinello