Bug drops Sitelinks Searchbox from Google search results

Google is working on fixing a bug that has removed the internal site search box that typically appears with some search results snippets.

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A bug in Google has wiped out a search feature that allows searchers to search within a specific site from the Google search result snippets. The feature launched three years ago, and it is officially called a Sitelinks Searchbox, where Google will show a search box directly within a search result snippet, allowing the searcher to restrict their search results to pages within the site listed.

Here is what it looked like on a search for “YouTube” when the feature launched.

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Now, the Sitelinks Searchbox is no longer showing, at least temporarily. RankRanger caught the feature dropping out of Google globally a couple of days ago.

Google Sitelinks Searchbox Bug

Google is working on it, but there is no estimated timeline for a fix to be rolled out.

Postscript: On October 3, 2017 the search box returned to the Google search results.


About the author

Barry Schwartz
Staff
Barry Schwartz is a Contributing Editor to Search Engine Land and a member of the programming team for SMX events. He owns RustyBrick, a NY based web consulting firm. He also runs Search Engine Roundtable, a popular search blog on very advanced SEM topics. Barry can be followed on Twitter here.

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