Google Specifies If Changing Sitelinks With Noindex Is Acceptable

In response to a Reddit inquiry, Google’s John Mueller clarified if it is OK to no-index a webpage in order to prevent it from appearing in sitelinks.

Sitelinks, which are grouped links in the search results from a single domain, is often displayed when someone searches for a website’s name or URL.

A link to one of the real estate agent’s webpage was included in the sitelinks for the real estate website in question. The person who posed the query believed that Google need to choose what they deemed to be a more significant page to show in the sitelinks.

Noindex a Website to Get Rid of Sitelinks?

A Noindex meta tag is a mandate, and as such, search engines are required to abide by it. When a meta Noindex tag is present, search engines must remove a webpage from their index. In fact, Google advises taking this strategy to remove a page from Sitelinks by using a Noindex.

Indexing Unrelated to Ranking?

There are numerous components to search engines. In a simple way, there is an indexing engine, which is the portion of the Googlebot that travels about. Scans the internet, and gathers website content for potential inclusion in Google’s index. A ranking engine is also present.

Why Do Google’s Sitelinks Display Less Desirable Pages?

Google provides a list of actions that publishers can take to prevent less desired pages from appearing in sitelinks. According to the sitelinks documentation, you should:

“Be careful to utilise interesting, pertinent, and condensed content for your page headers and headings.
Create a user-friendly, logical site layout, and be sure to connect to your vital sites from other pages that are similarly pertinent.
Make sure that the anchor text for your internal links is clear and appropriate for the page they are leading to.
In your text, avoid repeats.

Does Google follow and Index the JavaScript links?

10 Steps to Accelerate the Indexing of Your Site.