Mini Site Links FTW

April 7, 2009 written by Erin

If you’re active in SEO you know about the coveted mini site links that are available to selected websites. These bad boys greatly increase traffic and click through, helping the sites that have them to dominate the search results. Peep it out for yourself:

Pretty nice right? Most users are hard pressed to resist the call of these amazing little links and I’m sure you can see why. Typically these site links are only visible when searching for a company’s name (see the above example). However, Google has recently updated this. Now (and only on certain occasions) Google is providing a “partial” list of site links and they are doing so for generic search terms. Have a looksee:

Now, when searching for certain keywords, these links will appear horizontally, and not just for the number one spot. Apparently Google is testing out Yahoo-esque mini site links to possibly adapt them for wide spread use. Check this article for more details on the change:

http://www.search-engine-war.co.uk/2009/02/google-testing-yahoo-like-quick-links.html

It seems like this change started in Eurpoean searches, but now is reflected in American search audiences. So far these have been noticed on a few targeted terms. What does it mean for click through rate and traffic? Tell us what you think. Feel free to comment with your thoughts, ideas, and questions regarding these new mini site links. Will they hold as much awesome click through traffic as their easily recognized big brothers? Or will these little guys just be another part of the listing that users skim over? Only time will tell.