Webmaster tools shows today that I have sitelinks for my site, but when I do a search for site:domain_name or a search for my domain name in google, the site links don't show up. Do they only show up for certain regional searches?
Both are different, Google updating some filter on site: ( through Tool bar).. But in webmaster tool can see the latest updation with all the links
You need to wait some time before Google updates in all datacenters and then you will see your sitelinks by typing just domain name without "site:" and "http://"
It happened with my site too. Google Webmaster account showed sitelinks but never appeared on searches until few weeks. Now they appear randomly, sometimes they do sometimes no sitelinks.
Yeah,the same thing happened to me.Sitelinks appear in my Google Webmastertool,not in search engine for the present.I'm waiting for that.
you may want to try searching in google like this "www.yourdomainname.com". This seems to give me a more exact count.
I was reading up on this and came across a few blog posts where some said they were notified of sitelinks through webmaster tools, but it took up to 2 months before they showed up.
They show up on various keywords where Google thinks you have authority. Mine vary depending upon the search phrase.
You need to wait a few days before Google updates the serps and it will show eventually for your domain.
Not true, for my experience you can see the sitelinks with one week. And it also depend on which local Google, like it's different with .com and .co.uk.