Mega Sitelinks - everybody can see big sitelinks now

[suzukik]

We've seen Google testing big sitelinks many times so far. It seems official now (or rolling out gradually). It's so huge that it occupies above the fold.

Screenshot [picasaweb.google.com]

[insidesearch.blogspot.com...]

Sitelinks will now be full-size links with a URL and one line of snippet text—similar to regular results—making it even easier to find the section of the site you want. We’re also increasing the maximum number of sitelinks per query from eight to 12.

[edited by: Brett_Tabke at 11:52 pm (utc) on Aug 16, 2011]
[edit reason] added link to new google blog post [/edit]

[tedster]

Looks like it takes a navigational intent to trigger it, doesn't it. But you know what? I still can't get these mega sitelinks, not in any browser.

[suzukik]

Yes, I can see it for a navigational query. It sometimes shows as many as 12 shortcut links.
I guess Google is rolling it out now. Try search over and over again, and you may see it.

[seoholic]

Germany, confirmed.

[Errioxa]

Spain, confirmed

[brotherhood of LAN]

Thanks for sharing. I can't duplicate it from the UK, using Firefox on Ubuntu. I just get the smaller fonted sitelinks with no URL/description.

[Leosghost]

Ahh ..that... been going on for ages ..( have it on some of my own sites ).. France. Opera on Mint

[netmeg]

I can't get 'em here, even for Amazon or such like.

[suzukik]

I confirmed it on Google.com and Google.co.jp. But it doesn't always show up yet.

[kidder]

I'm seeing it from AU on lots of sites. I take this change as an even stronger signal from Google - They are rewarding brands in a big way.

[seoholic]

They are rewarding brands in a big way.

For my site I get mega sitelinks only if I search for the first part of my domain:

redwidgets-and -->mega sitelinks
redwidgets-and-bluewidgets --> normal sitelinks
redwidgets-and-bluewidgets.tld --> normal sitelinks

Some competitors domains begin with redwidgets-and.

How to interpret this in context of brands?

My rankings:
redwidgets 5
bluewidgets 20 (more competitive)

[wheel]

Oh Wow. Here's the real SEO challenge. Can I get my username to show up in the sitelinks for webmasterworld?

[kidder]

Wheel I like it :)

[lucy24]

Nothing here, even in Chrome. Sign in/out makes no difference. But while trying to find the magic formula, I noticed that (browser-independent) if I go back to the main google page and paste in the same search term again, they will jump straight to the results page without the formality of waiting for me to hit Return. This is very annoying, so I hope they don't imagine they are being helpful. Has this been going on for years and I just never noticed because I don't normally use vanilla google?

I'd also forgotten that "I'm feeling lucky" takes you to the actual site. That was unnerving.

[EvilSaint]

@Wheel :) Perhaps if you were a moderator you might have some more influence...but its a good challenge to have.

I tried ebay, amazon, apple, yellow pages and a few other big brands and high traffic sites out here in Australia and couldn't see it for them.

Using Firefox 5.0 and wasn't logged into Google.

I saw a post about this on Search Engine Roundtable back in April 2011...they were mentioned as "Jumbo Sitelinks".

@Lucy24 - I think you're referring to Google Instant Search which has been around for a while now. You can disable it from your settings on the Google page. They will autoload results for you based on what you enter into the box if this is switched on.

[tedster]

Yes, and we had a thread here in April about it too - with a screen capture from imbckagn

New - 12 Site Links [webmasterworld.com]

[jakegotmail]

i noticed this for the first time a day or two ago as well ... for a branded search with a keyword added to the end.

an additional random note, the keyword was not completely typed ... the first letter was typed and the autocomplete/suggest kicked in but mistakenly wasn't selected. so the actual search term was "(brand name) (single letter)" yet it still triggered this type of result.

[sem4u]

I can't see this on Google UK from the UK using Firefox 5, Opera, IE8 or Chrome. I haven't been logged into a Google account.

[g1smd]

It massively depends on the search query. In the space of a few minutes I see: 12 or 8 in a grid, or 4 in a single row.

[pontifex]

only a few brand names are effected: United, ABEbooks and my own site :-) I found. Expedia or some other eCommerce sites not. Also minnapple reports the old layouts for the same search terms. For me it appeared in Germany yesterday on Chrome - not logged in to G...

[imbckagn]

Every site I check that had normal sitelinks and some sort of authority has the big set today.

Couple Examples

[postimage.org...]
[postimage.org...]

I get these results no matter how I type the URL in the search box. I also noticed some big changes in the SERP's today.

[g1smd]

I see several sites where 12 links are listed in the WMT Sitelinks report, but the SERPs only ever seem to display a maximum of 8 links.

[sem4u]

I can see this on Google UK now. It really pushes the rest of the results down the screen (below the fold on my monitor). Affiliates trying to rank for brand names won't like this one bit.

[SEOTranslator]

Checked it on Google Spain (google.es), France (google.fr), Germany (google.de), Brazil (google.com.br), Canada (google.ca) and India (google.co.in).

It appears in all of them, but curiously enough with some different level of detail... how interesting.

[AG4Life]

Got a 12 mega sitelinks listing for my main site (10 for another, really really Pandalized one, and 8 for another really small one).

For the site with 12, I only have 7 sitelinks listed in WMT (there's another 4 that's blocked). For the site with 10 listed, only 8 is shown in WMT and 2 of out these WMT listed 8 is not shown in the 10 - Google seems to have grabbed a few more to make up the numbers.

[netmeg]

Yep, I got em and they look great. Clients mostly have them, although one lost some on other queries.

The message is clear. Brand up or die.

note - I have them on other sites. I will likely never have them for 'netmeg' because Google still thinks I'm a typo.

[Content_ed]

One of our sites, my hobby site, has a common expression with the words run together for the domain name. It not only comes up with big site links that list practically every page on the site (it's small), it comes up for the expression with spaces between the words. It never used to do that. Will be interesting to check traffic tommorow morning to see if people are clicking.

[graeme_p]

They are trying to do it for navigation phrases. My site gets more site links if you run the words together: ie "sitename" rather than "site name".

A clients site with a searchphrase.com type url got sitelinks only if you ran the words together, and only two lines of them.

Some very big corporate websites only got the sitelinks if I typed in the URL rather than the name.

I think it depends on whether there are other strong results and how much it looks like a navigational query, and it is not a binary choice, the number of sitelinks can vary.

[lexipixel]

Boy is that ugly -- but I like it. I get 100% of everything above the fold (two columns of 6 fora total of 12 site links).

I can get it for several of my sites if;

- the site is well aged (doesn't seem to work for newer sites), and/or;

- I type the domain name into the google search box

- site has consistent navigation.

It seems to pull up either second level pages for sites that have consistent navigation, and/or; high ranking well aged "popular" pages that Google knows about.

Now off to try to manipulate things and try to get what >>> I <<< want to show up.

It really is ugly though -- I liked the look of the old site links much better.

[lexipixel]

just checked another site that is always #1 for a 3-word phrase... Got (6) site links for that one, (2 columns of three)...

Also noticing "Privacy Policy" is the first link on several of the sites although the link for it is marked up with a <small> tag and the very bottom of the site's pages.