Adwords “Sitelinks” – What Why And How

August 17, 2016

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SITELINKS BASICS
Sitelinks are a form of Google Adwords ad extensions that have been available to all advertisers for several years. The specifications for a sitelink have evolved over time, but one thing that has remained constant (so far) is the available characters in the link text. A sitelink can have up to 25 characters which become the blue, clickable text that is added to a standard Adwords text ad. These sitelinks allow savvy advertisers to enhance their creative with additional information and just plain make the ad bigger. In addition, these can give users a quick and easy path to other parts of the site than would be accessible just by clicking the ad headline. Here’s an example of a couple ads with sitelink extensions on a Google SERP (search engine results page).

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ENHANCED SITELINKS
In February 2012 Google launched “enhanced sitelinks”. This gave even more options to advertisers to provide additional information, and capture additional real estate, right on the SERP. After this updated advertisers now had the ability to add up to 70 characters of description text to the 25 character headline on each sitelink. This extended description shows from time to time at the Google algorithms discretion. Most often, the extra enhanced sitelink text only fires on core branded queries, but it is eligible to appear at other times. Here’s an example of enhanced sitelinks showing on a core branded query for chevrolet.com

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COMPLIMENTARY SITELINK ANALYSIS
Want to make sure your Adwords campaign is up to date with the latest updates and best practices regarding sitelinks? If you’re an Adwords advertiser who spends at least $10,000/mo you qualify to receive a complimentary sitelink performance. Just get in touch with MBT today and let us know how we can help!