Google showing sitelinks for site that is not an "authority"

[arin2u]

In webmaster tool I can find a tool which shows the sitelinks for my site. I haven't done anything extra but now it appears. I heard of authority websites or websites that comes top in SERP for a particular keyphrase get sitelinks from google.

But my website is not ranked at top. Is there any change in google's policy? I found this one [google.com...]
Can anyone put more light on it?

[Robert Charlton]

Just to clarify... are you seeing the sitelinks in the serps, or just in Webmaster Tools?

Often, a site will show Sitelinks on a search for it's own name, but not for more competitive terms.

[Hissingsid]

Is it listed in DMOZ?

Cheers

Sid

[Robert Charlton]

Is it listed in DMOZ?

I haven't seen that this has made any difference re whether Google displays Sitelink listings.

What's not clear about the question is whether arin2u is in fact seeing Sitelinks in the serps, or just in WMT.

[edited by: Robert_Charlton at 9:01 pm (utc) on Mar. 18, 2008]

[arin2u]

yup...i'm seeing the sitelinks for my site in the serp not for any competitive terms but with my site name. I found many of my friend's site is having the same. What looks strange to me is that those sites are getting little traffic and they are no where in the top serp for any competitive terms. So I wonder if there is any change in the google's algo?

[arin2u]

hi Sid...my site is not listed in DMOZ.

[Hissingsid]

OK. Its just that I noticed that I could only get site links for my site name on its own or coupled with one word. That word is a branch on the DMOZ categorisation 2 levels above where my site is listed.

Since I noticed this I have found certain other non-related to DMOZ that do the trick so it was a red herring, sorry.

Cheers

Sid

[potentialgeek]

I don't see another general sitelinks thread, and didn't want a start a new one, so I'm putting this here.

I just saw one sitelink removed. I'd asked via WT for Google to remove one that was out of date, and it did, but that left a less clean look with four sitelinks on one side and three on the other. Google just removed one without asking.

p/g

[tedster]

That's a computerized algo for you, eh? FWIW, I do have clients whose Sitelinks are lopsided, 4 and 3 for example. They did not request a removal for an eighth link, however, the algo only wanted to give them 7. from the start.