The sitelinks search box was a search field that appeared under some brand results in Google, letting users search the site directly. Sites could influence it with WebSite markup containing a potentialAction of type SearchAction that described their internal search URL. Google announced in October 2024 that it would stop showing the feature, and it was removed in November 2024.
How the markup worked
The SearchAction declared a target URL template with a placeholder for the query and a query-input property naming that placeholder. Google could then send searches from the box to the site's own search results page.
"potentialAction": {
"@type": "SearchAction",
"target": "https://www.example.com/search?q={search_term_string}",
"query-input": "required name=search_term_string"
}What to do now
Existing SearchAction markup does no harm, and Google said there is no need to remove it. It no longer triggers any Google feature. The surrounding WebSite markup still matters for site names. When cleaning up templates, removing the SearchAction is optional.
Example
A template cleanup
During a site rebuild, Gannetfold's developers find SearchAction markup pointing to a search page that no longer exists. Since the feature is gone, they remove the potentialAction and keep the WebSite node with the brand name.
Common mistakes
Adding it to new sites
Guides written before late 2024 still recommend it. It no longer has a Google feature.
Questions
No. Regular sitelinks, the extra links under a result, are unaffected. Only the search box was removed.
Sources
