A little-known feature of Google’s search engine crawler could turn site stats on its head: Google Sitelinks.
Our process for generating Sitelinks is completely automated. We show them when we think they’ll be most useful to searchers, saving them time from hunting through web pages to find the information they are looking for. Over time, we may look for ways to incorporate input from webmasters too.
What is most amazing is how entering only two letters can generate a mini-site map for many large sites. Here’s but one of thousands of examples:
Of course this makes eminent sense—many acronyms you can think of produce mini-directories—most, until recently, created directories with links to as many as six pages. But now we’re noticing more and more eight-page call-outs for Sitelinks, especially for government entities such as FBI and FDIC and larger organizations such as the AFL-CIO.
Of course, now everyone with an initial wants in on the action because this means you’re at the top of your SERPs in the coveted, exclusive #1 spot. On the downside, you’ve just turned your entry page strategy over to Google—which, presumably, is why Web masters can “opt out” of a Sitelinks listing (through the Webmaster Tools Dashboard).
Though the SEO “experts” provide lengthy lists of “how to get Sitelinks,” one is the absolute determining factor: you own that acronymic spot. I don’t believe there is a better illustration of this than FSM.
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