New Mini Sitelinks

The more eagle eyed people amongst you may have noticed a change with Google over the last week or so, there have been a few different reports including triple indented results (Ive not personally seen this).

The one thing i have seen however is what people are calling ‘mini site links’ There doesnt seem to have been anything official from Google about this but the evidence is there.

Everyone is used to the normal site links, these are the links underneath the website at number 1 in google.

Now there seems to be a new type of site link. This is a row of links on one line, some people may think this is bad, especially if you are number one, however these links seem to be available for websites that are not only at position 1. Below you can see an example of what the ‘mini site links’ look like.

An example of site links on multiple sites in the search results can be seen when you do a search for ‘cheap flights’

You will see from the tool that this is page one and two of the results.

Another thing that we have noticed is that it doesnt seem to have replaced the traditional site links. If you do a search for a brand then you seem to get traditional site links, if you do a search for a key phrase then its the new mini site links.

Example. Do a Google search for ‘Coca cola’ you get traditional site links, this is because you are searching for a brand, that brand is position 1 and they are giving you lots of site links. If you search fro a brand its usually certain that’s what you a searching for.

Now change your search to ‘vending machines’ this is not a brand, its more of a key phrase people would optimise for. For these results there are no traditional site links but position 1 and position 2 do have mini site links.

To sum it up it seems Google is treating the way people search differently. If your searching for a brand then they are giving you the brand, there shouldn’t be much competition in it at the top of Google as if Google is not returning that brand as position one then is it giving you the best results? i think not!

For search terms google is very competitive, now they have opening up what seems to be the top 2/3 positions to be given the site links, they have taken the traditional site links away and made it a bit more of an even playing field. For people at the top this could lead to less people clicking as they are now less drawn to the position 1 website because it doesnt take up a 1/4 of the page with all its site links! I think the changes mean that although position 1 is the wholly grail you can still reap the benefits from below.

Gary
Senior SEO Developer