Google sitelinks questions in conjunction with wordpress

[sledge81]

Hello all,

A quick question about wordpress menus and google's sitelinks.

Does changing menu links on WP affect you in anyway from displaying google sitelinks? In other words, how dynamic or static should the menu links be in order to be picked up by Google for displaying the sitelinks.

[tedster]

Relatively static is the way to go with menus if you want Google to use that input in determining sitelinks. However, know that a very popular page or section may become a sitelinks even if it's not in the menu.

Relatively static is also the way to go if you don't want to upset regular visitors.

[AnkitMaheshwari]

From experience, when we had to change the menu links to add new services (also removed some to make space), Google stopped showing sitelinks for about a month and then slowly picked the new ones again.
So, I believe dynamic menu links would give Google a signal not to show them at all.

[sledge81]

Thanks guys.

My site has gradually grown to PR3 and often our site is quoted by other authority sites as well. Apart from this, we rank in the top 5 for some very traffic rich keywords.

The only downside was that in the run up to having the 'perfect' site design, the menu was played around with. I hope the final design won't be changed anymore and if there be any changes, it would only be additions to the menu that we have (as sub menus).

Is there anything else I can do apart from waiting and hoping for google to pick up the sitelinks?

[tedster]

I've been watching their Sitelinks algorithm for a long time and it's gone through quite some evolution. I'm quite convinced today that real traffic (the kind you can't fake and still sustain) is a big part of the formula. I've got one site where a subdomain is one of the sitelinks, even though its link is not on the menu or submenu. It appears on the root domain only once - in a sidebar on the home page.

[edited by: tedster at 6:50 am (utc) on Feb 17, 2011]

[sledge81]

That's very interesting to note tedster. I guess for now one can only work and wait to see as and when the results show.

I suppose for the moment there are more pressing concerns. My bounce rate which was hitherto at a very neat 1.2% has risen to 10%. All thanks to an idiot who hacked our site last week.

Anyways, I suppose that demands a different thread in itself.

Thanks.