Sitelinks

TL;DR — Sitelinks are the extra links Google shows underneath a result — the shortcuts to other pages on the same site. You mostly see them when you search a brand name. You can’t add them or pick which pages show; Google does it automatically. The best thing you can do is keep a clear site structure with good internal links and descriptive page titles.

What sitelinks are

When you search for a brand — say “ahrefs” — Google often shows the main result and then a little block of extra links below it: pricing, blog, login, and so on. Those extra links are sitelinks. Google describes them simply: “Sitelinks are links from the same domain that are clustered together under a text result.”

They’re there to save people clicks. If Google thinks you’re looking for a specific section of a site, sitelinks let you jump straight there instead of landing on the homepage and hunting around.

When Google shows them

Sitelinks show up mostly for branded and navigational searches — queries where someone is clearly looking for a specific site. But brand recognition alone doesn’t guarantee them: Google only shows sitelinks when it thinks they’ll be useful, when your site’s structure lets its algorithms find good candidates, and when the result is relevant to that specific query. Miss any of those and Google just shows the plain result — which is also why you won’t usually see sitelinks for broad informational searches like “how to bake bread.” They’re fairly rare overall: in my analysis of Ahrefs’ US data, sitelinks appear in only about 1.8% of search results.

The thing most people get wrong

You can’t add, edit, or request sitelinks. There’s no form, no setting, and no magic code you paste in. Google says it plainly: “At the moment, sitelinks are automated.” Anyone selling you a way to “get sitelinks added” doesn’t have one.

What you can do is make your site easy for Google to understand:

• Use clear, descriptive page titles.
• Keep a logical site structure — important pages shouldn’t be buried.
• Link to your important pages with helpful, specific anchor text.

Do that well, and Google is more likely to pick good sitelinks on its own.

Want the full picture — the history, the deprecated searchbox, how Bing does it differently, and the one (drastic) way to suppress a sitelink? Switch to the Advanced tab.

TL;DR — Sitelinks are algorithmic, full stop — there’s no tool to add, edit, or guarantee them, and the Search Console demote tool that once let you flag unwanted URLs was removed in October 2016. You influence them exactly the way you influence rankings: clear structure, descriptive titles, strong internal linking. The only suppression lever is noindex, which nukes the page from search entirely. Don’t conflate organic sitelinks with owner-controlled Google Ads sitelink assets, or with the Sitelinks Searchbox (a separate schema feature Google deprecated in November 2024). Bing’s equivalent — Deep Links — actually gives you block-and-reorder control that Google doesn’t.

What sitelinks are (and what they’re not)

Sitelinks are the cluster of additional same-domain links Google shows under a single result. The official definition is short: “Sitelinks are links from the same domain that are clustered together under a text result.” They surface for branded and navigational intent — when Google is confident which site you want and tries to guess which section you want next.

In my Ahrefs write-up on sitelinks I broke down the formats you’ll actually see: organic sitelinks (the large multi-link block, up to six links on strong branded queries), one-line sitelinks (a smaller row, up to four, that shows across more query types), and carousel layouts. All of those are organic and algorithmic. Paid sitelinks — Google Ads sitelink assets — are a completely separate system you control yourself; I cover those below.

They are 100% algorithmic

This is the single most important thing to internalize. Google: “At the moment, sitelinks are automated. We’re always working to improve our sitelinks algorithms, and we may incorporate site owner input in the future.” The “in the future” is doing a lot of hopeful work there — today there is no input mechanism at all.

Google only shows sitelinks when it thinks they help: “We only show sitelinks for results when we think they’ll be useful to the user. If the structure of your site doesn’t allow our algorithms to find good sitelinks, or we don’t think the sitelinks for your site are relevant for the user’s query, we won’t show them.” That’s the whole deal — structure and relevance, decided on Google’s side.

How to influence (not control) them

Because sitelinks ride on Google’s understanding of your site, the levers are the same on-page and architecture levers you already use. Google’s sitelinks doc lists four things directly, and I’ll flag anything below that’s my own extrapolation rather than Google’s documented list:

• Site structure (documented). Google: “Create a logical site structure that is easy for users to navigate, and make sure you link to your important pages from other relevant pages.” A totally flat architecture can force Google to lean on weaker signals.
• Page titles and headings (documented). Google: “Make sure that the text you use as your page titles and in your headings is informative, relevant, and compact.”
• Internal-link anchor text (documented). Google: “Ensure that your internal links’ anchor text is concise and relevant to the page they’re pointing to.”
• Avoid repetitive content (documented). Google: “Avoid repetitions in your content.”
• Breadcrumbs and link placement (practitioner inference, not on Google’s list). These reinforce the same structure and anchor-text signals Google does document, so they’re a reasonable extension — but Google’s sitelinks doc doesn’t call them out by name.
• Usefulness and relevance (documented, but as an eligibility gate, not a lever). This maps to the “we don’t think the sitelinks… are relevant for the user’s query” condition above — it’s something Google checks, not a separate tactic you execute.
• Hreflang (practitioner inference, not on Google’s list). For international sites, hreflang helps Google identify the correct locale variant of a page in general indexing and ranking. Google’s sitelinks doc doesn’t specifically name hreflang as a sitelinks signal — treat this as a plausible extension of its broader effect, not a documented sitelinks lever.

None of this guarantees sitelinks. It just makes you a better candidate. Sitelinks are a result of strong structure and authority, not a thing you switch on.

Suppressing a sitelink: the nuclear option

There used to be a real tool for this. Google’s sitelinks demotion feature lived in Webmaster Tools from October 2007 until October 13, 2016 — almost nine years — and let you flag specific URLs you didn’t want appearing as sitelinks. Google removed it, explaining: “Our algorithms have gotten much better at finding, creating and showing relevant sitelinks, and so we feel it’s time to simplify things.” They added a useful framing in the same announcement: “Sitelinks have evolved into being based on traditional web ranking, so the way to influence them is the same as other web pages.”

So what’s left? Essentially one lever, and it’s blunt. Google’s own sitelinks doc says it directly: “If you need to remove a sitelink, consider removing the page from your site or using noindex.” John Mueller has said the same thing in plainer terms: “No way to completely remove a URL from the site links, apart from putting a noindex on it.” The catch is obvious — deleting the page or applying noindex removes it from all search results, not just from your sitelinks. There’s no control that touches only the sitelink and leaves the page itself ranking normally. It’s a nuclear option. If a page is valuable enough to rank but you don’t want it as a sitelink, you’re mostly out of luck; the better move is usually to strengthen the pages you do want surfaced rather than try to suppress one you don’t.

(If you still see outdated guides telling you to “demote sitelinks in Search Console” — that advice has been dead since 2016.)

Three different things people lump together

Before the searchbox history, it’s worth separating three systems that all touch the same part of the SERP but work completely independently:

• Organic sitelinks — the sub-links this article is about. Fully algorithmic, no markup involved.
• Site name — the bolded site title Google can show above a result. You can express a preference for it with WebSite structured data on your homepage, but that markup is scoped to the site-name feature. Google’s site-names documentation doesn’t tie it to sitelink selection, and the sitelinks documentation doesn’t mention WebSite markup as an input — they’re separate systems that happen to share a schema type.
• Sitelinks Searchbox — the now-retired inline search field, also triggered by WebSite structured data (with SearchAction added). Covered next.

Adding WebSite markup can get you a site-name preference; it never selected, ordered, or guaranteed organic sitelinks, before or after the searchbox was retired.

The Sitelinks Searchbox is gone (and it was never the same thing)

People constantly conflate sitelinks with the Sitelinks Searchbox. They were different features. The searchbox was an inline search field that could appear beneath a branded result, letting users search the site directly from the SERP. It was triggered by WebSite structured data with a SearchAction — owner-implemented schema, never available to all sites.

Google deprecated it. The announcement landed October 21, 2024, and the feature was removed from Search globally on November 21, 2024. Google’s reason: “over time, we’ve noticed that usage has dropped,” and removing it would help simplify the results. Critically, Google confirmed “this doesn’t affect rankings or sitelinks otherwise” — regular sitelinks are untouched.

What about the old schema? You can leave it in place. Per Google’s own guidance, the WebSite/SearchAction markup causes no errors now; removal is optional. The Search Console rich-results report and the Rich Results Test highlight for the feature were removed too. The practical takeaway: that schema no longer triggers any SERP feature, so don’t expect it to do anything — but you don’t need to rush to strip it out either.

Bing calls them Deep Links — and gives you more control

Bing has the same concept under a different name: Deep Links. The differences matter if you care about more than Google:

• Generation. Like Google, Bing generates them algorithmically — but Bing also layers in behavioral personalization based on cross-site browsing history.
• Owner control. This is the big one. Bing Webmaster Tools lets you block individual deep links and provide weighting to reorder them — control Google removed in 2016. As Go Fish Digital put it, “Bing lets you use Bing Webmaster Tools to block Deeplinks that you don’t like, which is similar to what Google Webmaster Tools used to let you do with Sitelinks.”
• Block duration. A block in Bing expires after 90 days unless you extend it.
• Action links. Bing can render deep links as action buttons (e.g., “book a flight”), which Google’s organic sitelinks don’t do.

You still can’t add deep links in Bing — generation is Bing’s call — but the block and reorder controls are a genuine difference from Google.

Paid sitelinks are a separate world

Don’t conflate the two. Google Ads sitelink assets are manually added links you attach to paid ads, fully under your control, configured at the campaign or ad-group level (up to six on desktop, eight on mobile). Organic sitelinks are algorithmic and uncontrollable. They look similar in the SERP; they are entirely different systems with entirely different rules.

Why sitelinks are worth caring about

They’re not a ranking factor — they’re a consequence of authority and structure, not a cause. But they’re valuable real estate. In my Ahrefs analysis of sitelinks, on the single branded query “ahrefs” specifically, 12.9% of clicks went to sitelinks rather than the homepage — a click-share figure from Ahrefs’ own dataset for that one query, not a universal rate. That’s real demand being routed deeper into the site. Sitelinks also act as a brand-trust signal: Google tends to show them when it’s confident about brand intent.

One measurement note: Google Search Console’s Performance report doesn’t expose a dedicated sitelinks dimension. You can see aggregate clicks and impressions for a page and query, but you can’t isolate how many of those clicks landed on the sitelink versus the main result, and you can’t attribute a ranking effect to having sitelinks at all — that requires third-party click-tracking or a proprietary dataset like the one above.

The honest summary

You can’t add them, edit them, or request them. You influence them by being the kind of site Google can confidently parse — clear hierarchy, descriptive titles, strong internal linking — which is the same work that helps everything else. The demote tool is gone, the searchbox is gone, and noindex is the only suppression lever (and a heavy-handed one). If you want real block/reorder control, that lives in Bing, not Google.

AI summary

A condensed take on the Advanced version:

• Sitelinks = same-domain links Google clusters under one result, mostly for branded/navigational queries. Rare overall (~1.8% of SERPs in Ahrefs’ US data).
• 100% algorithmic and gated. No schema, setting, or form adds, edits, or guarantees them. Google shows them only when it judges them useful, your site’s structure surfaces good candidates, and they’re relevant to the specific query — all three conditions, not just “you’re a known brand.”
• Formats: organic (large block, up to ~6 links), one-line (up to ~4), carousel. These are all organic — distinct from owner-controlled Google Ads sitelink assets.
• Influence levers — split by source: Google’s own documented list is site structure, page titles/headings, internal-link anchor text, and avoiding repetitive content. Breadcrumbs, link placement, and hreflang are reasonable practitioner extensions of those same signals — not on Google’s documented list.
• Suppression: Google’s own doc says remove the page or use noindex; both take the page out of search entirely, not just the sitelink. The Search Console demote tool was removed Oct 13, 2016.
• Three separate systems: organic sitelinks (algorithmic), site name (a WebSite-schema preference for the bolded site title), and the now-retired Sitelinks Searchbox (also WebSite-schema-triggered, but a different feature). WebSite markup never selected or guaranteed organic sitelinks.
• Sitelinks Searchbox was deprecated Nov 21, 2024; leaving the old schema in place is harmless.
• Bing = “Deep Links”: algorithmic + behavioral personalization, but you can block (90-day expiry) and reorder them in Bing Webmaster Tools.
• Value: not a ranking factor, but real estate + trust signal — 12.9% of clicks on the single branded query “ahrefs” went to sitelinks in Ahrefs’ dataset (not a universal rate). Search Console has no dedicated sitelinks-click dimension.

Official documentation

Primary-source documentation and announcements.

Google

• Sitelinks — the official definition, why Google shows (or doesn’t show) them, and best practices.
• Site names in Google Search — the separate WebSite-structured-data feature people confuse with sitelink control.
• Farewell to the Sitelinks Search Box (Oct 2024) — the deprecation announcement.
• What’s new in Search (updates) — where the November 2024 removal note lives.

Bing / Microsoft

• How Bing Deep Links work — a clear walkthrough of Bing’s Deep Links and the block/reorder controls in Bing Webmaster Tools (relayed; verify against Bing Webmaster Tools help).

Quotes from the source

On-the-record statements from Google and its representatives. Each official-docs link is a deep link that jumps to the quoted passage.

Google — what sitelinks are and how they work

• “Sitelinks are links from the same domain that are clustered together under a text result.” — Google Search Central docs. Jump to quote
• “We only show sitelinks for results when we think they’ll be useful to the user. If the structure of your site doesn’t allow our algorithms to find good sitelinks, or we don’t think the sitelinks for your site are relevant for the user’s query, we won’t show them.” — Google Search Central docs.
• “At the moment, sitelinks are automated. We’re always working to improve our sitelinks algorithms, and we may incorporate site owner input in the future.” — Google Search Central docs.

Google — sitelinks best practices (current wording)

• “Create a logical site structure that is easy for users to navigate, and make sure you link to your important pages from other relevant pages.” — Google Search Central docs.
• “Make sure that the text you use as your page titles and in your headings is informative, relevant, and compact.” — Google Search Central docs.
• “Ensure that your internal links’ anchor text is concise and relevant to the page they’re pointing to.” — Google Search Central docs.
• “Avoid repetitions in your content.” — Google Search Central docs.
• “If you need to remove a sitelink, consider removing the page from your site or using noindex.” — Google Search Central docs.

Google — on the removed demote tool (October 2016)

• “Our algorithms have gotten much better at finding, creating and showing relevant sitelinks, and so we feel it’s time to simplify things.” — Google, via Search Engine Land.
• “Sitelinks have evolved into being based on traditional web ranking, so the way to influence them is the same as other web pages.” — Google, via Search Engine Land.

Google — on the Sitelinks Searchbox deprecation (November 2024)

• “This doesn’t affect rankings or sitelinks otherwise.” — Google, via Search Engine Land.
• On the reason for removal: “over time, we’ve noticed that usage has dropped.” — Google, via Search Engine Land.

John Mueller, Google Search Advocate

• “No way to completely remove a URL from the site links, apart from putting a noindex on it.”

Sitelinks readiness checklist

You can’t summon sitelinks, but you can make yourself a strong candidate. A quick pass:

• Page titles are informative, relevant, and concise (not stuffed or repetitive).
• Site has a clear, logical hierarchy — important pages aren’t buried deep.
• Internal links to important pages use succinct, specific anchor text.
• Breadcrumbs are in place to reinforce structure.
• Important pages are crawlable and indexable (no accidental noindex/blocks).
• Headings and any table of contents reflect the page’s real structure.
• For international sites, hreflang is correct so the right locale can surface.
• You are not relying on the old Search Console demote tool (removed 2016).
• You understand noindex is the only suppression lever — and it removes the page from search entirely.
• You’re not confusing organic sitelinks with Google Ads sitelink assets.

The mental models

1. Influence, don’t control. Organic sitelinks are an output of Google’s understanding of your site, not an input you set. Treat them like rankings: you improve your odds, you don’t flip a switch.

2. The three lookalikes that aren’t the same thing. Keep these separate and most sitelink confusion disappears:

• Organic sitelinks — algorithmic, uncontrollable.
• Google Ads sitelink assets — manual, fully owner-controlled, paid only.
• Sitelinks Searchbox — a deprecated (Nov 2024) schema feature, not sitelinks at all.

3. Suppression is binary and blunt. There is no “remove this one sitelink.” There is only noindex, which removes the page from search entirely. If that’s too much, your real option is to strengthen the pages you want surfaced instead.

4. Google vs. Bing control. Google: zero post-2016 control. Bing (“Deep Links”): you can block (90-day expiry) and reorder in Bing Webmaster Tools. If control matters, Bing is where it lives.

5. Sitelinks are a symptom, not a cause. They reflect authority, brand intent, and clean structure. Chasing sitelinks directly is backwards — build the structure and authority, and good sitelinks follow.

Sitelinks cheat sheet

Organic vs. paid vs. searchbox

Google vs. Bing

Fast facts

• You cannot add, edit, or request organic sitelinks.
• Only suppression lever: noindex (removes the page from search entirely).
• Max organic block: up to ~6 links (observers noted a shift toward ~4 around 2022); one-line: up to ~4.
• Leaving the old searchbox schema in place is harmless — it just does nothing now.

Tools for sitelinks

There’s no “sitelinks tool” because there’s nothing to configure on Google’s side — but these help you check status and work the levers that matter:

• Google Search Console — confirm your important pages are indexed and crawlable (sitelink candidates must be indexable), and use URL Inspection to verify a page’s status.
• Bing Webmaster Tools — the one place you actually get sitelink-style control: the Deep Links section lets you block and reorder deep links (90-day block expiry).
• Google Ads — where you add and manage sitelink assets for paid ads (a separate system from organic sitelinks).
• Ahrefs / Screaming Frog — audit site structure, internal links, anchor text, and page titles — the inputs Google uses to choose sitelinks.
• A SERP check on your brand name — the simplest “tool”: search your brand and see what sitelinks (if any) Google currently shows.

Resources worth your time

My related writing

• What Are Sitelinks? And How to Influence Them — my full Ahrefs guide, with the formats, the influence factors, and the proprietary click-share data (12.9% of “ahrefs” branded clicks go to sitelinks; sitelinks in ~1.8% of US SERPs).
• The Beginner’s Guide to Technical SEO — where site structure and internal linking (the real sitelink levers) fit in.

My speaking

• How Search Works (SlideShare) — my walkthrough of crawling, rendering, indexing, and ranking — the pipeline that produces SERP features like sitelinks. (Standing disclaimer applies: “This is my understanding of systems… not going to be 100% complete or accurate.”)

From around the industry

• Sitelinks documentation (Google Search Central) — the official definition and best practices.
• Google Search Console removes sitelinks demotion feature (Search Engine Land) — the 2016 removal, with Google’s verbatim reasoning.
• Google Search to drop the Sitelinks Search Box (Search Engine Land) — the October 2024 deprecation announcement.
• Google Search Console removes sitelinks demotion (Search Engine Roundtable) — additional 2016 coverage.
• Sitelinks: What Are They & How Do You Get Them? (Search Engine Journal) — a solid definition-plus-best-practices overview.
• How Bing Deeplinks and Google Sitelinks differ (Go Fish Digital) — the best concise comparison of Bing’s Deep Links controls vs. Google.
• Google deprecates Sitelinks Search Box — what it means for your website (Schema App) — the structured-data implications of the November 2024 removal.

Test yourself: Sitelinks

Five quick questions on how Google sitelinks work. Pick an answer for each, then check.

Sitelinks

Sitelinks are extra links from the same domain that Google clusters together under a single search result, usually for branded or navigational queries. They're generated entirely algorithmically — there's no way to add, edit, or guarantee them.

Related: Internal Link, Duplicate Content

Sitelinks

Sitelinks are the cluster of additional links Google shows beneath a single result, pointing to other important pages on the same domain. Google’s own words: “Sitelinks are links from the same domain that are clustered together under a text result.” They appear most often for branded and navigational queries — when someone searches a brand name, Google adds shortcuts to the pages it thinks the person wants next.

They’re 100% algorithmic. There is no schema, no setting, and no submission form that adds or guarantees sitelinks. Google decides whether to show them, which pages to use, and how many to display. The old Search Console demotion tool that let you flag unwanted sitelink URLs was removed in October 2016; the only remaining way to keep a page out of sitelinks is noindex, which removes it from search entirely.

Two things often get confused with sitelinks: Google Ads sitelink assets, which are manually added links on paid ads and fully owner-controlled, and the Sitelinks Searchbox, a separate structured-data feature that Google deprecated in November 2024. Bing has its own equivalent it calls Deep Links, which — unlike Google — can be blocked and reordered in Bing Webmaster Tools.

You can’t dictate sitelinks, but you can influence them the same way you influence rankings: clear site structure, descriptive titles, and strong internal linking to your important pages.

Related: Internal Link, Duplicate Content

Changelog