Google Sitelinks will always intrigue and excite SEOs until they can figure out how they are derived. Google’s explanation of sitelinks, although present, is just as vague as their other documentation:

“Sitelinks serve as shortcuts to help users quickly navigate to the important pages on your site .”

These are all interesting theories about how Google sitelinks come to be and how you might be able to get sitelinks.  I personally think its a combination of these with an emphasis on the internal structure of your site and the on-site seo.

Sitelinks Thought #1: Surfer oriented

This theory can be considered supported by Google:
“We only show sitelinks for results when we think they’ll be useful to the user. “

Sitelinks Thought #2: Domain-authority oriented

The more powerful the domain is, the more likely it will get sitelinks.

Sitelinks Thought #3: Internal-architecture oriented :

If your internal architecture clearly shows Google what’s important and what’s relevant , you might get sitelinks.

Google FAQ:
“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.”

Sitelinks Thought #4: On-site SEO :

Some SEO’s noticed that some on-page SEO changes effected a site receiving sitelinks:

• Links located at the top of the source code stand better chance of showing up as sitelinks;
• Consistent usage of a keyword in the link anchor text, file path, and h1 and h2 Tags.

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