To get sitelinks in Google in 2026, search your brand name, confirm your homepage ranks first, give every key page a unique descriptive title, link to those pages from your homepage with short anchor text, keep them indexable, and build branded search demand until Google decides the shortcuts are useful. Google’s Search Central documentation says plainly that “at the moment, sitelinks are automated,” so no setting, tag or form switches them on. If you need guaranteed extra links today, Google Ads sitelink assets are the paid route.
That one sentence from Google shapes the whole job. You cannot request sitelinks. You can only remove the reasons Google would skip them. The same documentation states that Google only shows sitelinks “when we think they’ll be useful to the user,” and that if your site structure “doesn’t allow our algorithms to find good sitelinks,” it won’t show them. The rest of this post turns those two conditions into a checklist you can finish in an afternoon, then explains how long Google takes to respond.
Want to see how Google and AI assistants currently read your brand? Request a free AI visibility audit and we will show you where your brand query stands.
What are Google sitelinks and when do they show?
Sitelinks are the indented list of extra links under a top search result, usually for a brand or site name search. Google’s documentation describes them as shortcuts: “Our systems analyze the link structure of your site to find shortcuts that will save users time.” Google generates them from your site’s link structure and the query, which is why they show up mostly when someone searches for you by name.
Two details matter. First, the documentation does not publish a minimum traffic level, a fixed number of links, or a list of qualifying site types. Any figure you see quoted as a “requirement” elsewhere did not come from Google’s docs. Second, sitelinks are separate from your site name and title link. Google’s site names documentation says site names are chosen by an automated system using homepage content and references to it across the web, and that you can state a preference with WebSite structured data. That markup influences the name shown beside your result. Google does not say it produces sitelinks, and we have not tested whether it changes them.
Sitelinks are also different from the other result features you may be chasing. A featured snippet pulls an answer for a question query, and a People Also Ask box expands related questions. Sitelinks reward brand recognition and site clarity instead. If you are working on those features too, see our guides on how to win a featured snippet and how to get into People Also Ask.
How do I get sitelinks on my site step by step?
Work through five steps in order, because each one depends on the step before it. Google gives you no switch, so the method is about making your site easy for its systems to summarize and giving the brand query a reason to exist.
1. Run the brand query test
Search your exact brand name in a private window, on desktop and on mobile. Note whether your homepage is the first result, whether a site name appears above it, and whether any links sit beneath it. Do the same for your brand plus a common word, such as “Acme pricing.” Record the result with a screenshot and the date.
This tells you which problem you have. If your homepage is not first for your own name, sitelinks are not your issue yet. Fix ranking, duplicate domains or a name clash first. If your homepage is first with no sitelinks, move to step two. A new site with almost no branded searches often sits in this second group, and that is normal.
2. Build a clear site structure
Google’s documentation tells site owners to “create a logical site structure that is easy for users to navigate, and make sure you link to your important pages from other relevant pages.” Translate that into a short list. Pick the four to eight pages a visitor looks for after landing on your brand: pricing, services, about, contact, a top product or a main resource hub.
Put those pages in your main navigation as plain HTML links, one click from the homepage. Avoid menus that only render after a script runs or hide behind a hover state. Google builds sitelinks from the links it can crawl, so a page missing from your crawlable navigation is a page that cannot become a shortcut.
3. Write descriptive titles and short anchor text
Google asks that page titles and headings be “informative, relevant, and compact,” and that internal anchor text be “concise and relevant to the page they’re pointing to.” Its title link documentation adds that every page should have a title in the title element, that boilerplate repeated across pages makes results hard to tell apart, and that vague titles such as “Home” do not help. It also lists the sources Google may use to build a title link: title elements, headings, the first h1, og:title, and anchor text.
Check your key pages against that list. A page called “Services” and linked as “Click here” gives Google nothing to work with. A page titled “Emergency Plumbing Repair | Acme” and linked as “Emergency repair” does. Make titles unique per page and put the brand at the start or end, separated by a pipe or hyphen.
4. Strengthen internal linking and remove duplicates
Link your key pages from the homepage, the footer and from relevant body content on other pages. Google’s guidance to “avoid repetitions in your content” applies here as well. If three pages cover the same topic with near identical titles, Google has to guess which one is the shortcut, and it may pick none.
Audit for duplicate sections, such as a services page and a near copy under a campaign URL. Pick one canonical page for each topic and point internal links at it. Redirect or consolidate the rest. Fewer, clearer pages produce clearer candidates.
5. Confirm indexability, then build branded demand
Every page you want as a sitelink must be indexed. Open Search Console, run the URL Inspection tool on each key page, and confirm it says the page is on Google. Submit a sitemap, check that robots.txt and noindex tags are not blocking anything, and make sure the canonical points to itself.
Then address demand. Google says sitelinks appear when they are useful to the user, and the clearest case is someone typing your name. Mentions in press, podcasts, partner sites and local directories give people reasons to search for you by name. Google has not published how much branded search is enough, and we have found no primary study that sets a number, so treat any specific threshold as unverified.
How long do sitelinks take to appear?
Google does not publish a timeline for sitelinks. Its title link documentation says updates require recrawling, which typically takes days to weeks, and that is the closest primary guidance for changes to titles and links. Sitelinks depend on the same crawl, so expect weeks at minimum after you fix structure and titles.
Use Search Console to speed up what you can control. Request indexing for changed key pages through URL Inspection, resubmit your sitemap, and check the Pages report for crawl errors. Then rerun the brand query test from step one every two weeks and log the result. If your homepage ranks first and your structure is clean but nothing appears after two or three months, the most likely gap is demand. Newer and smaller brands often see sitelinks arrive only after their name gets searched more often. That pattern is our observation across client sites, not a figure from Google, and we have not run a controlled test.
If your brand traffic is falling rather than failing to start, the cause is usually different. Our guide on why your Google traffic is dropping covers that diagnosis.
Can I choose, edit or remove my sitelinks?
You cannot choose or edit them, and Google’s current documentation offers only a blunt removal method. It states: “If you need to remove a sitelink, consider removing the page from your site or using noindex.” The same page says Google “may incorporate site owner input in the future,” which means a control could arrive later, but none is described today.
Older SEO guides mention a sitelink demotion setting in Search Console. The current sitelinks documentation does not describe one, so do not build a plan around it. If an unwanted page appears, ask whether it deserves to exist. If it does and you want it out of sitelinks, noindex is the documented route, with the cost that the page leaves Google entirely. For a login page, an old campaign page or a thin tag archive, that cost is usually fine.
You can still shape which pages Google considers. Make the pages you want clear, linked and well titled, and make the ones you do not want less prominent in navigation. That influence is indirect, and Google makes the final call every time.
Can I pay for sitelinks with Google Ads?
Yes. Google Ads sitelink assets give you full control, because you write the text and pick the destinations. They are a separate product from the free sitelinks in organic results, and they attach to your ads rather than to your listing.
Google’s Ads help documentation sets these limits: sitelink text is capped at 25 characters in most languages, and you need at least 2 sitelinks for them to serve on Search and Performance Max. It lists up to 6 sitelinks on desktop and up to 8 on mobile for Search and Performance Max, with video and Demand Gen campaigns showing up to 4. Google recommends creating at least 4 at the account level, and at least 6 with descriptions for the best chance of full display.
Paid sitelinks do not create organic ones. They are useful when you run brand ads and want a controlled set of shortcuts today, or when you defend your name against competitors bidding on it. Treat them as a tool for the brand query, run in parallel with the organic work above.
FAQ
Can you request sitelinks from Google?
No. Google states that sitelinks are automated and that it may take site owner input in the future, but no request form, tag or setting exists today. Your options are to make your site structure and titles clear, keep key pages indexed, and grow branded searches. Google decides when and whether to show them for each query.
How many sitelinks does Google show?
Google’s organic sitelinks documentation does not state a maximum or minimum number, so any specific figure for free results is not from Google. The only published counts we found are for paid ads: up to 6 sitelinks on desktop and 8 on mobile for Search and Performance Max campaigns, according to Google Ads help.
Why do I have no sitelinks for my brand?
The usual causes are a homepage that does not rank first for your name, key pages missing from crawlable navigation, vague or duplicate titles, unindexed pages, or too little branded search. Google says it will not show sitelinks if its algorithms cannot find good ones or if they are not relevant to the query. Run the brand query test first.
Does schema markup give you sitelinks?
Google does not say so. WebSite structured data helps Google choose your site name, according to its site names documentation, but the sitelinks documentation describes automated analysis of link structure and does not mention markup. We have not tested markup as a cause of sitelinks, so do not expect it to trigger them.
How do I remove a sitelink from Google?
Google’s documentation advises removing the page from your site or adding a noindex tag. Either option takes the page out of search results entirely, so use it only for pages that do not need to rank. The current sitelinks page does not describe a Search Console demotion tool, so rely on the documented methods.
Do sitelinks come from Google Business Profile?
No source we found ties organic sitelinks to Google Business Profile. Google describes them as coming from analysis of your website’s link structure. Your profile affects the local panel and map results, which is a different feature. For local visibility, see our guide on how to rank on Google Maps.
The bottom line
Sitelinks are a result of clarity plus recognition. Google reads your links, titles and headings, decides which pages save a searcher time, and shows them when your name is searched. You cannot order them, so build the conditions: confirm the brand query, structure your navigation, title pages clearly, link them with short anchors, keep them indexed, and earn name searches.
Not sure whether your homepage, titles and internal links give Google enough to work with? Get your free AI visibility audit and we will review how your brand shows up in search and in AI answers.
Use Google Ads sitelink assets if you need shortcuts under your name now. Then check your brand query every few weeks, because the organic version arrives on Google’s schedule, not yours. For the full picture on titles and structure, read Google’s own pages on sitelinks, title links and site names, plus the Google Ads sitelink asset help.
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