Sitelinks are additional links Google sometimes shows under a search result, pointing to other pages on the same site. They usually appear for navigational and brand searches, helping users jump straight to pages like pricing, login, docs or careers. Google generates them automatically; site owners cannot choose them directly, though site structure and clear navigation influence what Google selects.
How Google picks sitelinks
Google's documentation says sitelinks are shown only when it thinks they will be useful, and that it selects them automatically. Its guidance for helping it choose good ones is about the basics: a logical site structure, informative and concise anchor text in internal links, and avoiding repetition.
- Clear main navigation with descriptive labels
- Distinct, descriptive title tags for key pages
- Internal links that use meaningful anchor text
- Pages that match what brand searchers look for
Removing an unwanted sitelink
There is no direct sitelink removal tool any more; Google retired the demotion option in Search Console years ago. To stop a page appearing, you can noindex it, or make it less prominent in navigation and internal links. Removing a page from the index also removes it from search results generally, so use that carefully.
Sitelinks search box retired
Google used to show a search box within some sitelinks results, supported by WebSite structured data with a SearchAction. Google removed the sitelinks search box feature from results in late 2024. The markup does no harm but no longer triggers that display.
Example
Getting useful sitelinks for a brand search
A brand search for hypothetical support tool Helpquarry shows sitelinks to an old webinar and a careers page, but not pricing or docs. The team renames vague navigation labels like “Resources” to “Docs” and “Pricing”, improves title tags on those pages, and links to them more prominently from the homepage.
Common mistakes
Expecting markup to create sitelinks
There is no sitelinks structured data. Navigation and internal linking are the influence you have.
Questions
Google shows them when it judges them useful, mostly for brand queries on sites with a clear structure. Smaller or newer sites often do not get them.
