How Google AdWords Sitelinks Impacts Organic Traffic

Dec 9, 2010 - 8:58 am 3 — by
Filed Under Google Ads

SEOmoz has a nice case study of the impact of turning on your AdWords Sitelinks in Google.

Google added Sitelinks to AdWords back in November of last year, here is how they look:

AdWords Ad Sitelinks

So what happens to your traffic when you activate the AdWords Sitelinks when you already have the number one organic listing in Google?

The SEOmoz post has one case study. Here is a table he shared with the impact:

Visits Without Sitelinks With Sitelinks Change Change %
Total Visits 146,922 148,382 1,460 0.99%
AdWords Visits 32,248 61,740 29,492 91.45%
Organic Visits 114,674 86,842 -27,832 -24.27%

As you can see, adding in the AdWords Sitelinks pretty much didn't end up sending that much more traffic to the site with the already good organic ranking. But if you do not rank well organically, then it does take a away a lot from that top listing and boost your traffic significantly.

There is more graphs and data in the SEOmoz post.

Forum discussion at Sphinn.

 

Popular Categories

The Pulse of the search community

Google Search Volatility

More Details

Search Video Recaps

 
Video Details More Videos Subscribe to Videos

Most Recent Articles

Google

Google Placing Source Icons At Bottom Of AI Overviews

Nov 11, 2026 - 8:15 pm
Google Ads

Google Ads API Version 26.2 Now Out Available

Nov 11, 2026 - 3:45 pm
Google

Google Search AI Overview Definitions Expanded By Default

Nov 11, 2026 - 2:51 pm
Google Search Engine Optimization

Google: How Moving to a CDN Can Accidentally Overwhelm Your Website

Nov 11, 2026 - 10:55 am
Search Forum Recap

Daily Search Forum Recap: November 11, 2026

Nov 11, 2026 - 10:00 am
Google Ads

New Google Ads Overview Page: Customer Journey Insights

Nov 11, 2026 - 7:51 am
Previous Story: Google Image Search Updating Index Within Days