-
Published Date
Oct-24-2024
-
Views
2 Min Read
The sitelinks search box has been present in Google Search for more than 10 years now. It lets users search within a website right from the search results page, making it easy to access a part of a huge site. But now Google has informed us that the sitelinks search box will be removed from Google Search on November 21, 2024.
This decision brings to closure a useful but less-used feature to optimise current generation devices. In this blog, I will discuss what the sitelinks search box is, the pros and cons of its removal, and its impact on SEO and, in general, for businesses.
What is the Sitelinks Search Box?
Originally launched over ten years ago, the sitelinks search box is a feature of Google Search, placed below some links to specific websites in search results. It contained a search bar, where users could type in certain content from the site directly in Google without visiting it.
This feature was useful for large sites because it enabled people to go straight to the content they wanted without having to use the home page or the site structure.
Why Google Is Removing the Sitelinks Search Box?
Google said that starting from November 21, 2024, it would remove the sitelinks search box, and the move would happen in October 2024. This is because, from the company’s report, they recorded a decrease in the utilization of the feature over the years. With a change in user behaviour, fewer people used the sitelinks search box to find their way to the website.
Furthermore, Google wants to make the search results page less cluttered and instead bring more refined content to users. Google can completely remove the sitelinks search box feature on a result page and make other visual items stand out, yet preserve the pure look of search results. This will affect all search results and will occur for all languages and all countries.
The Effectiveness of Search Engine Optimization and Keyword Selection
One of the main questions of webmasters and SEO is whether the absence of the sitelinks search box may influence the ranks. Thankfully, Google has been clear that this update will not impact rankings. However, other sitelinks including the clickable links to certain parts of the site will not be affected.
Also, the sitelinks search box we associate with the structured data will not cause the error in the Search Console report. For websites that have implemented this structured data, it is safe to leave it as is without any problems or penalties arising from it. What this means is that while the sitelinks search box will be hidden there is no urgent need for webmasters to change or even delete their structured data.
Benefits and Drawbacks of the Sitelinks Search Box
Advantages:
- User Experience: For large websites, the sitelinks search box provides one means of making it easy for users to search through the site without having to browse through numerous pages.
- Improved CTR (Click-Through Rate): Some of the websites may experience higher CTR because of the box provided, which allows users to refine their search immediately after the results page.
- Brand Visibility: The search box helped to build a brand’s position on the search results pages and provided greater visibility to larger sites.
Disadvantages:
- Limited Usage: However, the abuse rate of a sitelinks search box was low. In the long run, users became accustomed to typing a query into Google’s search bar or typing the particular URL into the address bar instead of using search engines.
- No Longer Relevant: It is possible that as users’ behaviour changed, the use of this feature declined, so Google decided to transfer its importance to other components of the search results page.
- SEO Impact: The search box itself did not affect rankings but many webmasters invested a lot of time in implementing and maintaining structured data which doesn’t seem worthwhile now.
What PromotEdge Can Do for Businesses in Transition?
As sitelinks search boxes are set to disappear, businesses must look at other SEO and marketing avenues in order to remain relevant in the results pages. A digital marketing agency like PromotEdge can assist businesses in handling such changeover with ease.
- Structured Data Optimization: Currently some of the other rich results and features still supported by Google can be prompted for your site through PromotEdge to check that its structured data is up-to-date as well.
- Enhancing CTR through Sitelinks: The sitelinks search box extension is no longer available, meaning that it is crucial to optimise for standard sitelinks, which will remain. PromotEdge could provide a set of recommendations aimed at raising awareness of your top pages within the search results.
- User Experience Improvements: While Google has been pushing for user experience signals in its algorithms, PromotEdge can assist in the overall improvement of the structure and functionality of your site to make it easy for the user to find the content they need.
- SEO Strategy Adaptation: The fact is that SEO is not a stagnant field and the elimination of the sitelinks search box is one of the recent changes. PromotEdge knows current trends and can assist a company in responding to constant changes in the search environment.
FAQ
#1. Does the absence of a sitelinks search box pose a problem to SEO?
Indeed, the decision to remove the sitelinks search box will have no impact on rankings or SEO. PromotEdge can assist you with improving the structured data on your website and hence enhance the exposure.
#2. Should I not use this sitelinks search box structured data?
It does not have to be deleted because it doesn’t create any issues if you leave it in the document. It can help you understand how to keep your structured data relevant to meet your SEO goals.
#3. What can be beneficial to Google with PromotEdge?
Get the best SEO solutions from PromotEdge to deal with Google changes and continue to rank high on the search engine results page.
Deprecated: File Theme without comments.php is deprecated since version 3.0.0 with no alternative available. Please include a comments.php template in your theme. in /home/u159959989/domains/promotedge.com/public_html/wp-includes/functions.php on line 6121
Latest Posts
-
14 / Apr
Branding Strategy Branding Agency Secrets: Why We Fall in Love with Brands? -
08 / Apr
-
31 / Mar
-
28 / Mar
Digital Marketing Search Everywhere Optimization: The Future of Modern SEO Services -
22 / Mar
Digital Marketing Integrated Marketing Communication: Build a Seamless Brand Voice
Blogs
Journey into Ideas Unveiling Tomorrow's Insights Today.
Warning: Undefined variable $current_post_type in /home/u159959989/domains/promotedge.com/public_html/wp-content/themes/promotedge-2024/single-post.php on line 203
