Google Tweaks Sitelinks by adding Comment Numbers
4 November 2009
29 Comments
Sitelinks are the links shown below some sites in google’s search results, called sitelinks, they are meant to help users navigate your site. Google’s systems analyzes the link structure of your site to find shortcuts that will save users time and allow them to quickly find the information they’re looking for.
Recently while doing a google search i noticed Google was tweaking the information sitelinks shows and it seems to be that they’re adding the number of comments to some sitelinks.
mfinch, I am very much confuse by reading this post please make me clear. What is the reason behind “adding the number of comments to some sitelinks” why google is doing so?, what is the benefit of it? Awaiting for reply?
Google is constantly trying to show the best results to users and i think that they are using the amount of comments as a way to judge the pages on the site by importance. The more comments a post receives the more likely it will show up in site links. I have olny seen this in the one site and I can olny speculate on why Google is doing this i will have to look into it some more.
Thanks for the reply mfinch but what i think that the post who receives more comments, it means the users like that post so they are commenting and that’s why google give importance to that post and now Google Tweaks Sitelinks by adding Comment Numbers.
Yes exactly - google is using the number of comments on a page as a ranking factor for site links. I wonder if google is also using it as a ranking factor for search?
This is an interesting way to rank links I guess.
Yes - i haven’t seen google use the amount of comments in site links before and it is interesting to think about what else they are using that data for. If anyone else sees any other sitelinks with the number of comments in them can you let me know.
Hmm… this is new! I wonder what this will mean in the future.
Many people would view a large number of comments as social proof that validates the perceived value of the listing.
Social media sites are being used by an increasing number of people for searches by the tags so Google is appearing to be testing the waters to see if this will help them too.
Yes, i also believe Google is trying to use more social metrics in their algorithm. I believe Google is starting to experiment with different types of social to get a sites value.
An interesting new feature by Google, they have had quite a few updates lately.
Seems that they keep tweaking how they display results without telling people. They can also read the amount of replies made on a thread on a forum too!
They’re a great search engine
Do you know of any examples where they have shown forum replies in site links. Not telling people is what keeps them in business - everyone needs their little secrets.
You should also better link those words, it is very annoying to read. When i click some link that I suppose it to be a google search, it is pointing to another article at this site. Very annoying. But the post is informative, thanks anyway.
Well the links are for seo purposes. The terms are links to related articles on the site - just like Wikipedia does.
Google not confirmed via its source but most webmaster says google counts backlink for pr and sitelinks.
Yes back links also play a huge roll in what pages show up in site links. The more popular a page is on your site the more likely it will show up in your site links. Google shows pages in site links that it thinks will benefit the user and the more links a page has the more Google will think it is important. But they are starting to use new more social metrics to rank sites and show site links.
I’m a bit confused about this too. Exactly how relevant is this for your average SEO guy ? Seriously, I don’t know.
To me it looks like a more cosmetic change than anything useful. But then I assume I’m probably wrong, after all You wouldn’t write a post about something as small as a cosmetic change…
It signifies that Google is starting to use more social factors in there algorithm. They are starting to get responses from many different social metrics.
Hi Jim,
Nice blog. Interesting to see how google is constantly morphing with the rise of social media.
Thanks for sharing
Ryan
Nice post, very informative :)Personally I think this’ll help the bigger blogs but hurt the smaller blogs as people will know they aren’t getting much traffic/comments before they even visit.
Love the new look of the blog by the way, looks sooo much nicer than before. Much cleaner on the homepage
Thanks - I am still working on adding new features to it - the footer is bare right now and i need to add my social profiles and a little bio
I remember reading a while back that Google is looking towards more to social factors for their rankings, so this could be one of the signs that they are doing this.
I think this is actually a good move (especially considering all the hvpocritical moves Google has made in the past) because it gives the searcher more “juice” to go on when deciding where to click through
One thing I would like know though, is how do you get your site to be shown with “sitelinks”
…as you put it,
In order to get sitelinks your site needs to be an authority on the subject and have lots of links on the main page and internal pages. As well as a great link structure
I think that this is a pretty cool google upgrade. It will make life easier when you are looking for popular and specific content.
In that case I’m well on my way
That is exactly why Google is adding this infromation to site links. What ever makes searching for users easier makes Google more money.
I think it’s more about authority instead of link structure though. While link structure is important, I don’t think Google would do sitelinks for a site unless they have a lot of authority.
You need lots of authority and a great link structure. If you have one and not the other it will be hard to get them.
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