[iancollington]

Hello all.

Just wondered if anyone could shed any light. I was just wondering if anyone knows how sites get listed in Google so that the listing shows the other main parts of the site? I don't really know how to explain it hence why I've found a Google search difficult but if you search on Microsoft for instance it shows:

Microsoft Corporation
Main site for product information.....
Microsoft Corporation......

Download center - Microsoft Download Center
Help and support - support.microsoft.com
Windows - Windows Home Page

In the listing. How does Download center/help and support etc get added to that entry as indented entries? Does anyone know? I hope I've made sense!

I had thought it was to do with Google Sitemaps but it either isn't the case or I have to wait longer. Our site has been crawled and updated again since I created the Sitemap.

Thanks,

Ian

[Matt]

Ian,

I've wondered the same. Did some research some time ago and it just seems Google just does it.

If you find out out, let me know

Matt


Edit: Try this link Google Sitelinks: New Name For Those Links Under The Top Listings

[Matt]

The answer from Google in regard to these;

For a small number of sites, we’re not just showing our regular snippets: we try to expose useful links from within a site. In this Berkeley example, Google shows links for Berkeley departments, academics at Berkeley, etc. Pretty neat (and more importantly, useful) stuff.

People who know Google well will go “Cool” and move on. Other folks will ask things like “Are sites or their links selected by hand–can my site get in on this? Is money involved?” And the answer is: it’s all algorithmic. The algorithms pick the sites where this could be helpful. Of course money isn’t involved at all.

[iancollington]

Ahhhh! Thank you very much for the quick response there Matt. I did try and do a search on Google but I didn't know what to search on!! lol

Ah well, that's explains that one then.

[travellinglad]

Funny because I've only seen this happen to sites that are no1. in the results, and probably just coincedence, but the site seems to spend alot of money in Adwords.

Ohh controversial

[Kieran]

Its true it only happens for the top site in a list, but it happens for those that don't use adwords too, take this academic institution search on google.co.uk for example.

[jnovak]

Are there any aspiring search-engine experts amongst us.. I am interested in getting into that area and if anyone wanted to exchange ideas on the subject that would be useful?

Or if anyone knows of useful reference material/links on the subject that might give me a start?

[Kieran]

When you say experts, do you mean in optimising sites for existing search engines or actual search engine design.

I know a little about both so am happy to discuss this subject area with you.

[jnovak]

Meant optimising sites for search-engines. But its interesting that you have experience in building the actual search-engine itself... is it one I can see online?

So initially I wondered the best approach to follow when establishing a set of keywords/phrases for a website. Then I suppose these would need to be incorporated in the site to help improve its rankings?

[Simon]

I've been trying my hand at this from some time the basic advice is:

+ get an XML google sitemap
+ rewrite all your URL's to readable addresses yourwebsite.com/one/oftheotherpages
+ Keep main headings text items within your keywords
+ I know meta tags are dead but...
+ CSS layouts keeping your styling separate from content

It seems to work best [and only when] your site is listed at the top part of the results page and all other pages[listed below as in your example] have a high ranking as well.

It's all about being relevent for all the pages you want listed. Using sub domains for each 'section' [or page] helps no end but again think relevency.