sitelinks
Also called: site links, google sitelinks
Sitelinks are the extra links to sub-pages that Google clusters beneath a single search result, most often under a brand's homepage listing. They are generated automatically from your site's structure and internal linking, so there is no setting to add, reorder, or remove them by hand.
Google describes sitelinks as “links from the same domain that are clustered together under a text result.” Its systems read your link structure to find “shortcuts that will save users time,” and it only shows them “when we think they’ll be useful to the user.” You cannot buy, tag, or hand-pick them. The only removal lever Google documents is taking the page down or adding noindex.
How you earn better sitelinks
Most sitelinks show up on brand or navigational queries. Search a company name and Google may surface links to its Services, Blog, and Contact pages under the main result. Broad informational queries rarely trigger them, because Google reserves the format for results where sub-page shortcuts genuinely help.
Google’s own guidance for improving them is plain: use page titles and headings that are “informative, relevant, and compact,” build “a logical site structure that is easy for users to navigate,” keep internal anchor text “concise and relevant,” and avoid repeated content.
One recent change worth separating out: the sitelinks search box, a distinct structured-data feature that placed a search field inside your result, was retired. Google removed that visual element starting November 21, 2024, citing dropped usage. That deprecation does not touch regular organic sitelinks, which still appear automatically and are unaffected in ranking terms.
How it affects your traffic
Sitelinks are a brand-query multiplier: when someone searches your name, a strong sitelink block hands them extra doorways to your best pages and pushes competitor listings further down the result. You cannot force them, but you can earn them through the exact levers Google names, clean titles, a logical hierarchy, and deliberate internal linking, all of which are architecture decisions rather than one-off tweaks. Getting that structure right so Google can read which pages deserve to be shortcuts is core to an SEO consulting engagement.
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