A sitelink asset is an extra link shown with a Google search ad, taking people straight to a specific page on your website, such as prices, opening hours or a particular service, rather than only the ad’s main landing page. Sitelinks used to be called sitelink extensions.
How sitelink assets work
Each sitelink has link text of up to 25 characters, two optional description lines of up to 35 characters each, and its own final URL. You add them at account, campaign or ad group level; a set at a lower level replaces the one above it for that part of the account.
Google decides when to show sitelinks and how many, depending on the device, the space available and the ad’s position. On a phone they often appear as a row of links you can swipe; on a desktop the top ad may show several with their descriptions. Adding sitelinks never guarantees they will appear, but Google’s own guidance is to give it several, at least four, so it has a full set to choose from.
Like other ad assets, sitelinks count towards Ad Rank, because Google estimates how much they will improve the ad’s performance. An ad with good sitelinks can win a better position at the same bid. Google may also create sitelinks automatically from your site if you allow automatically created assets.
Why it matters
Sitelinks make an ad bigger and more useful. Take a dental practice in Croydon advertising for “emergency dentist”. The main ad leads to the emergency appointments page, while sitelinks offer “Prices”, “Same-day appointments”, “Finance options” and “Find us”. The person who mainly wants to know the cost can go straight there, rather than hunting through the site.
They also let you answer the questions that stop people enquiring. In the UK that often means the cost, whether you take NHS patients, whether there is parking, or whether you cover a particular postcode. A sitelink that answers a doubt is worth more than one that repeats the main ad.
Common mistakes
- Sitelinks that all point to the homepage, or to the same page as the ad. Google expects each to lead somewhere distinct and may disapprove duplicates.
- Generic labels such as “Home”, “About” and “Contact” that tell a searcher nothing.
- Leaving out the description lines, which are what make sitelinks take up more space on desktop.
- Setting sitelinks once at account level and never adding campaign-specific ones, so a boiler repair campaign shows links about kitchen fitting.
- Forgetting seasonal sitelinks after an offer ends, so the ad promotes a sale that finished in January.
- Linking to pages that load slowly or are not built for mobile.
How to act on it
For each campaign, write down the four to eight questions a searcher has before they get in touch or buy, and find the page on your site that answers each one. If the page does not exist, that is a gap worth fixing for SEO as well as ads. Write link text that names the page plainly, use both description lines, and add the set at campaign level.
Check the assets report monthly. Replace sitelinks that rarely show or rarely get clicked, and add date-limited sitelinks for promotions with an end date set. For related formats, see callout assets, which add short unlinked phrases. Writing and testing assets is part of how I run Google search ads for clients.