Google Site Links question

[IrvCo_Interactive]

Are Google site links only ever shown on the top website? Or is it possible for certain queries for the site in position #2 or #3 or something to have site links but the #1 position not have them? If there are any guides, tips or write ups regarding site links and their behavior and optimization please share!

Thanks.

[trung.ngo]

I think the "avoids repetition" is in reference to anchor text or alt text to two different pages. For example, if Page A and Page B are both priority pages and both in the main navigation menu, their anchor text or alt text should be different. That way, when Google displays them as site links, they both won't display the same text in the site link.

[IrvCo_Interactive]

Thanks for the info!

I'm curious, what does Google mean here regarding internal links avoiding repetition? Wouldn't it make sense that your internal links for a particular page on your site all use the same anchor text for the sake of consistency? Or am I not understanding their advice correctly?

[trung.ngo]

Hello! In my experience, site links are only shown for the top ranking site. And it's typically for a branded search term. In terms of optimization, the best you can do with Google is to demote URLs that you do not want used as a site link. You can demote up to 100 in Google Webmaster Tools.

Bing allows some additional control: you can weight the pages that are appearing in Bing's site link consideration set. For example, there might be 15 URLs in their consideration set, but they only display 8. So you have the ability to make suggestions as to which of the 15 will be displayed in search results.

With all of that said, site links typically come from the main navigation and is algorithmically derived, so presumably, it's the most important pages on your site, as determined by site architecture, AND the pages that have high user engagement.

I'll leave you with some advice from Google on optimizing for quality site links:

"There are best practices you can follow, however, to improve the quality of your sitelinks. For example, for your site's internal links, make sure you use anchor text and alt text that's informative, compact, and avoids repetition."

-Trung