Google AdWords Announces Embedded Sitelinks

Anne Garcia - June 9, 2011

Google AdWords announced a new format for its Sitelinks extensions: if the text in your ad exactly matches one or more of the Sitelinks in your campaign, the text in your ad will automatically link to the destination URL of that Sitelink, instead of showing an additional line of text.

See below for Google’s example:

Google says that potential customers can pick the part of your ad that directly applies to their search query and be able to visit the most specific page for that topic.

Of course, there are a few requirements that your ad must meet in order to include an embedded Sitelink. First, your campaign must enable Sitelinks. Your ad must appear above the search results, and part of your ad text must exactly match one or more of your Sitelinks. Also, embedded sitelinks will show for ads that do not meet one or more of the requirements for one or two-line Sitelinks.

Google allows you to add up to 10 Sitelinks per campaign. In order to maximize your impressions for ads with Sitelinks, you should utilize all 10 destination URLs. In addition, Google has found that shorter text works better on Sitelinks than longer text. It is also possible to include multiple Sitelinks within your description text for multiple hyperlinks within your ad copy. In addition to optimizing you ad copy for your keywords, you should optimize your Sitelinks as well.