How are sub links appearing in search results?

[Peter K. Lam]

I'm researching some websites and found that a few of them have these sub links for their search results. Not every site has it so there must be something special done for Google so they can display these links. The screenshot is below:



Do any of you know where the links may be coming from? I want to do the same for my site. Thanks!

[Peter K. Lam]

*bump* Does anyone have information about this? Thanks!

[Jocelyn]

I think the bread crumbs links are helping it... but it's not only this...

[Peter K. Lam]

The breadcrumb links aren't called out in any special manner other than CSS for style. Could be related to sitemap?

[Peter K. Lam]

I looked into the sitemap and think it could be related. The site has so many links that the sitemap links to each section with their own sitemap using .gz compression. The sub links in the results are pulling the same URL and anchor text as indicated in the site map. I'm not sure who else has looked at this before but that's what I've gathered so far.

[niravpatel]

It's depend who you do link building for your web site.

Thanks

[Peter K. Lam]

I'm not sure how link building has anything to do with it. There seems to be something that the spiders are picking up because it looks very systematic.

[joshz]

These are micro or mini sitelinks. They are displayed under sites that have the following:

Great page structure
Bread crumbs, as previously mentioned
Rank number 1 for an unbranded keyword.

This is slightly dated information, but I find it accurate in most cases.

Just build quality links, ensure your site navigation is GOOD, meaning, at any page you could navigate to any other page. No hidden or hard to find menus, etc. Bread crumbs help, but don't promise sitelinks. None of my sites have breadcrumbs but the majority have sitelinks.

[Peter K. Lam]

Found more info about this. I guess the breadcrumb notion is on the right track: Get Your Breadcrumbs in Google for More Links in Results | WebProNews

Also, in looking at this some more, it's possible that the spiders are pulling the top navigation although a few of the anchor texts that appears in SERP doesn't match anywhere on in the code. Google is such a mystery some times. LOL

[tomwatson]

I hadn’t done this intentionally for SEO purposes but rather to help people navigate the large list of logo resources via a sub navigation. Perhaps with the knowledge that Google uses these anchor tags in their search results, it’s worth considering using them more often? It seems that Google is no longer using these sub-links.

[Glenn Kilpatric]

Try microformat on your breadcrumbs. And as Joshz points out, having a great site structure and navigation is essential. I also feel that user behaviour plays a role in which links are actually shown.

[Juc1]

Hi all

Peter's original motorbike screenshot is a bit unclear to me - can I just check is this thread talking about the same thing as my question here?

Thanks

[JennifferGrey]

I think it has nothing to do with google analytics, my friend told me those are called sitelinks.

[Peter K. Lam]

I think your post is about a similar situation I'm looking at Juc1. The first screenshot is similar to what I'm seeing. I'm not sure if that has to do with breadcrumbs or the sitemap. It could be just good site structure as some have already suggested. The second screenshot is most likely achieved through site map submission. If only Google lets us know how they do this stuff!

[Peter K. Lam]

There's a little more information about the site links in this article:

7 ways to maximize your CTR in Search Engine Results | Web SEO Analytics