Best way to manage SiteLinks?

[TravG]

What is the best way to manage your website sitelinks? I have noticed that whatever google deems my sitelinks I do get more traffic from those keywords. I thought by changing my internal link structure to link to the pages I would like to see as sitelinks would create them but that has not worked.

Maybe moreso it is based on external links and internal links combined? I have a blog on my site and it seems the pages I link to from my blog from within the actual articule content the most seem to get the sitelinks. Does that make sense?

Is there a strategy to use?

[best.hands]

Have you tried comparing your site links display to your most visited pages based on Google analytics? You might find clues from that view.

[davemerry]

I confess I have not done to much research when it comes to sitelinks as of yet, however off the top of my head I would use the following management tactics:

1. Use Google Webmaster Tools to block out sitelinks you do not want to show, pretty self explanatory when you are in control panel. It will hopefully cause Google to display your sought out alternatives.

2. As best.hands said it would make sense that Google views the most navigated to pages as the ones that users will want to jump to instantly through the generated your sitelinks. See if there is any correlation between your analytics most visited pages and the sitelinks being generated. If there is then place your links more prominently to users in your navigation to manipulate your traffic flow and hopefully change your sitelinks. If this is correct then remember it is not the quantity of internal links, more the placing, so choose carefully.

3. I wouldn't be suprised if external links play a part when deciding which pages are most relevant to display to users - after all they are meant to do as the above does, and help Google deem which pages are most important. Try the above whilst solid link building towards the page you want to be included in the sitelinks and it may push it over the edge,

Wish I could contribute more! Planning to test this pretty soon so I will send you a quick message if I find anything conclusive.

[webber286]

It's an interesting question and not really sure how Google figures out sitelinks, but my guess is they look at how you name your navigation links, then look at the links coming into those pages to make up the sitelinks. If you search for "playersjet" for instance, our website comes up with the following site links:

Sportsbooks
Casinos
Poker Rooms
Bingo

However our main navigation links are labeled (in order):

Online Casinos
Online Poker Rooms
Online Sportsbooks
Online Bingo
Online Slots

So clearly Google is intelligently figuring out how to display the sitelinks.

[TravG]

Thanks for the feedback. In looking at Pageviews and entry points neither really seem to correlate with the sitelinks. Its about 50/50 being half of the sitelinks appear to be top pages and half dont??

If anyone seems to figure anything out please post. I will tinker with this somemore as well and if I can make any conclusions i will share as well.

[graham]

I am not sure but google usually gives the most weight to pages with the most links and makes these your "sitelinks". Like DaveMerry mentioned you can specify pages which don't show there, but if you want them to recognize a page and add it to your sitelinks I really think you need to do your best to seo that page better. This is just a guess though.

[allfreechips]

Also how unique is the content on the pages. Google looks for pages that appear different enough from your other pages to pick out some quality site links I believe