Sitelinks Know-how and how Google Calculates that

There may be millions of keywords that are being stuffed in the Google search box on the daily basis. I wonder often, doesn’t Google get confused in providing the search results and it is providing some Sitelinks also. Now, what are these Sitelinks?

You may have noticed that some search results include a set of links below them to pages within the site. These additional links are called Sitelinks. The process for generating Sitelinks is completely automated and Google does a great home work before showing some particular links to the searchers.

Generally, these Sitelinks are shown when the search engine perceives that these are most useful for the searchers. It saves the searcher’s valuable time.

Now, the big question is why a particular link should be a Sitelink? There are some schools of thought on how does Google calculate Sitelinks.

One theory says that Google might track the number of clicks for different results. If a particular website gets more clicks for a special keyword then the website will get Sitelinks on the result page. This theory sounds practical but how Google is tracking those clicks, it is unimaginable.

According to another theory, the link architecture of a website may be the reason. It further says that links at the top of the HTML source of a website may have a better chance to be included as Sitelinks.

Still another theory guesses that Google may be using the Google toolbar to determine Sitelinks. This toolbar can collect a lot of information about a particular website. The possibility of a webpage being used as a Sitelink increases if it is bookmarked a number of times.

But, still it is difficult to speak concrete reasons as how Google calculates the new Sitelinks. The reason may be a combination of click data, toolbar data and other factors.
It is better to be properly search engine optimized to be listed as a Sitelink.