Expired sitelinks are a silent killer even for the most optimised campaigns. You might be running high-performing ads, but if those sitelinks lead to outdated, 404, or redirected pages, you’re bleeding relevance and trust.
Imagine a ‘Valentine’s Day Clearance Sale’ link still running in April. It feels outdated and confuses users, thanks to your CTR and Quality Score.
These are three intelligent checks you can apply to catch expired sitelinks early: what are the 3?
- Sitelinks returning 404 or 301/302 status codes
- Sitelinks containing specific outdated keywords (e.g., “Black Friday”, “2023”, “Summer Sale”)
- Sitelinks leading to pages that aren’t meant for users, like thank-you pages, temporary redirects, or draft content
That’s where a custom Google Ads Script turns a tedious QA task into a proactive, intelligent system. Instead of manually hunting down broken or outdated sitelinks, the script runs daily in the background, mapping each URL, identifying critical issues like status errors or irrelevant promo terms in URLs (e.g., expired sales or seasonal events), and sorting them by severity.
It neatly pushes the flagged sitelinks into a Google Sheet, with campaign and ad group context, so your team knows exactly where to act. You can also plug alerts straight into Slack or email, ensuring issues are caught and fixed before they impact performance.
We don’t just automate. We strategize. Want a custom script tailored to your accounts? Ping the Digital Analyst Team to build smarter workflows.
Sagar T
Sagar, Vice President of Digital Analyst Team (DAT), brings over 15 years of digital media expertise, including 12 years dedicated to DAT's growth. Certified in Google Ads, Microsoft Ads, Google Analytics, and Marin, he excels in managing an annual budget of over $80 million. Sagar is renowned for his strategic acumen in digital marketing, exceptional budget management, and his ability to drive significant industry results.
