On my homepage I have 2 links in the header (pricing/faqs) that point to different parts of the homepage. I have noticed these 2 links have not indexed on google search for 5+ days. Whereas all my links that point off the homepage, these have indexed and shown as sitelinks in 24 hrs. Am I right to say that google is not indexing those 2 links as they point to the same page effectively, as the homepage? Upon going on google search console, it says "Duplicate, submitted URL not selected as canonical". Any suggestions how I can get these to index, and thus appear as site links as they are quite important links for people to see on google search. Thanks
Make the appropriate submissions for those 2 links in the header so that Google will eventually noticed your site content page, crawl and index. Let Google determine the sitelinks in your website because they know how to present quality site pages that really needs by the target users.
You can't control sitelinks. And they are not of a 'bookmark' nature, which yours is. Highly recommend creating separate pages and then resubmitting sitemap. Follow that up with submitting the individual pages for indexing. As you said, "I have noticed these 2 links have not indexed on google search for 5+ days. Whereas all my links that point off the homepage, these have indexed and shown as sitelinks in 24 hrs." Hope that helps. Cheers! Barb
This is true. Site owner has no control over what will be selected as sitelinks in SERPs. The mechanics are unknown - I think Google does allow you to request specific sitelinks not be used - but you cannot tell it/suggest sitelinks to use. Even then, sitelinks for your website have to be populated in the first place before you can ask to not have that one used. I have tended to notice that sitelinks in SERPs are usually navigational links in nature (links to categorical website pages).