4.10 - Sitelink searchbox

1 - Findings & Impacts

In September 2014, Google announced the launch of an internal search bar available from the SERPs. It presents as follows:

This search bar is only available for a limited number of websites, defined by Google's algorithm.

This box allows users to type an internal query right from the Google search results pages (from the site they have searched for).

2 - Recommendations

CASE 1

If the Sitelink Searchbox is active for your site and that your site also has an internal search engine (GET method), we recommend the markup method that Google suggests (in JSON-LD or microdata) in the source code of your home page. This will allow the user to be redirected to the results page of the internal search engine of your website - once the user has validated their query in that box.

Here is an example of JSON-LD markup whose pattern of search URLs would be https://query.example.com/search?q={search_term_string}:

See below an example of a case where it has been well implemented => the search in the box takes you directly to the website

CASE 2

If this Sitelink Searchbox is active for your site but that your website does not have an internal search, or this search does not follow a pattern of URLs (meaning in POST method), we recommend the implementation of the following tag in the source code of your homepage:

This tag tells Google to no longer display the search box in the search engine's search result pages. Indeed, when it does not refer to the site's internal search, Google returns a new "site:" query, potentially displaying competing AdWords ads - or not, as it is the case below:

If the Sitelink Searchbox is not active, no action is necessary: it is not possible to force the appearance of the internal search bar on its site as it is something identified by Google's algorithm as relevant in some cases only.