On March 5th, Google announced the launch of it’s new SiteSearch-within-the-results capability or, as Google call it, teleporting.  Try typing New York Times into the search box and hitting enter. Interesting, eh? Google’s official “never do evil” reason for this innovation is that it helps users who have “forgotten the exact address of a site that [they] wanted to visit”. Users have added the argument that Google searches tend to be better than a search performed by the Brand’s own on-site search engine.

SiteSearch Controversy

Some punters have speculated that Google Teleporting is actually a tactic to increase their click thrus from sponsored ads. Why? Well, before Teleporting, if I were searching for flights at Thomas Cook, I would have perhaps typed “Thomas Cook”, then clicked on the number one result (which would be a link to their site). I would then search on the Thomas Cook site for “flights”. Now that teleporting is in place, I would probably put “flights” into the SiteSearch book within Google’s results. This is what I might get (correct as at 04.06.08 15:40):

Note that sponsored links for bmibaby appear on the right hand side of my results. Now, if I were to click on one of those results, Thomas Cook might lose a sale! Want an even better example? Try searching for “Hilton”, then using their SiteSearch box to search for “london hotels”. Would you be happy if you were Hilton?

Following this controversy, some big brands have (either publicly or privately) asked Google to disable SiteSearch for their results. According to a Google spokeswoman (quoted by the New York Times in a March 24th article) the company has honoured such requests from “a couple” of unnamed businesses. The paper speculated that Amazon were amongst these, as their SiteSearch box used to appear, but no longer did (at the time of writing). In the period since the New York Times article, a number of other Brands (which used to have SiteSearch boxes) appear to have followed suit, including Wal-Mart & Best Buy in the US and John Lewis & Tesco in the UK.

There are some funny things going on! I have spotted a number of SiteSearch results where one would expect to see paid ads but there are none at all! Try searching for Orange then using the SiteSearch box to look for Nokia. Or try searching for Guardian, then SiteSearching for Jobs. Could it be that some brands are trying a “middle ground” between being fully in and fully out? Could Google be trying new tactics to avoid a mass exodus of big brands?

So why would I want SiteStuff?

With all this controversy, you might wonder why you would want to court these for your own site. Well, let me make it simple. In my view, SiteSearch=bad and SiteLinks=good. Why? Well, with SiteSearch there is no great upside for your site! Anyone who searched specifically for you in the first place is what us marketers call a “prospect” (i.e. someone already disposed to purchase from you). The last thing you want is even a small risk they might change their mind at the very point of purchase.

SiteLinks, on the other hand, are like gold dust. Why? Well if you have four rows of site links under your main (top position) search result, you push all your competitors right down the page! You also make it much more likely that someone will click thru properly. Consider this example from John Lewis in the UK:

Notice how the main categories of John Lewis’ store (Home & Garden, Electrical Appliances, Womenswear, etc.) appear in the four rows of SiteLinks. John Lewis have not one call to action, but 10! One main link, eight SiteLinks site links and one “more results” link. Just as importantly, competitors and imitators are pushed further down the results page; out of site, out of mind! Try a search on Gucci. See how this helps them  to keep the res-sellers at bay? Dolce and Gabbana are slightly less successful, but more on this later.

How to get SiteLinks

Google have been experimenting with SiteLinks since 2005 and in September 2006, Vanessa Fox (Google’s SiteMap guru) added some useful guidance about them to the Google Webmaster Help Center. What has changed recently is that Google now serve SiteLinks for a much broader range of sites than they use to. For example, even this site has its own SiteLinks (try searching for “SEO Expert Services”) to see what I mean. SiteLinks are completely automated but seem to occur only when, for the search query used:

• the site is ranked number one in the SERPs for that search term,
• the site has significantly more inbound links (with that search term in the link anchor-text) than any other site,
• the site has a well structured (and easily crawled) sitemap, and possibly:
• the vast majority of click-throughs for that search term go to this site

Normally, the sites that fair best (with Site Links) are those with (a) well known brands and (b) only one domain for their content.

So, how to get SiteLinks? Well, firstly, you may have to confine yourself to the full name of your brand and/or business. Secondly, how should ensure that you have a healthy number of inbound links to the exact name. Thirdly, you should avoid carrying the full name on any other page title on a different domain.

How to Manipulate SiteLinks

If you looked at the SEO Expert Services SiteLinks, you will have noticed that they do not mirror the structure of my site! Rather, they tend to be a combination of (a) what is most often linked to, and (b) what is most often clicked upon. In the case of John Lewis, they do not have a blog or prominent stories. Their promotions rotate. As such, the SiteLinks (over time) will tend to their site sections and categories most frequently visited by users.

What you might not know is that Google offer you (within Google WebMaster Tools) the ability to manipulate which links appear under SiteLinks, by visiting the “links” category within the toolset. To use Google Webmaster Tools, you will need to (a) sign up for a Google Account, (b) add the Webmaster Tools service, and (c) add some Meta-data to your site. At the moment, all you can do is ask Google to block SiteLinks which you do not want to appear.

Generally, I do not advise the use of blocking. Why? Well, for many smaller businesses, all this will result in is less SiteLinks being served under your results (which is somewhat self-defeating). In my experience, even after some time, your full complement of eight is unlikely to return. What is a better strategy is to ensure that your main sections or categories are (a) prominent in the navigation, (b) repeated often in internal links on your site, and (c) linked to often by external sites. Over time – and with much patience – you will achieve the results you want.

Conclusions

Google will go on looking for ways to improve the effectiveness of their search results. As I have highlighted previously (in my article on Universal Search), competitors like Ask.com and A9.com have made great strides in changing the paradigm on how search results are presented. Google will have to work hard to keep up. Watch out for more innovations in the future – and fierce debates about their value. Also look out for an increasing divergence between what searchers want and what businesses will tolerate. Yes, Google plan to do no evil but they are also a business, with demanding shareholders, and get more and more of their revenues from larger brands. The future will be an interesting one!

Did you enjoy this page? Please bookmark it onto: