Has Google's Sitelink Search Box feature become obsolete? Google thinks so. The company says it will discontinue the feature, which provides a quick way for people to search a web site or app immediately from the search results page.

This feature was launched about ten years ago. Google will discontinue it globally in all languages and regions beginning on November 21, 2024. It provided a variety of information for those searching online.

"Over time, we've noticed that usage has dropped," Google wrote in a post, suggesting it will simplify the search process. 

The change does not affect rankings or the other sitelinks visual element and won't be listed in the Search status dashboard.

Search marketers on X speculated about what will take its place. Many believe it will be ads, while others believe search boxes in the future will disappear.

The company said once it stops serving up the sitelinks search box, it will remove the Search Console rich results report and will stop highlighting the markup in the Rich Results Test.

Marketers will not have the ability to remove sitelinks search box structured data from their site, but Google said there is no need to do so. Unsupported structured data will not cause issues in Search and won't trigger errors in Search Console reports.

If a marketer decides to remove sitelinks search box structured data, it's important to note that the site names also use a variation of WebSite structured data, which continues to be supported.

Google has continued to deprecate search-type features, perhaps based on continuing its rollout of artificial intelligence (AI).

In September, the company discontinued its its cache operator after removing the cache link from the search result snippets in January. The company still offers an archive of search results known as the Internet Archive Wayback Machine. 

Google Cache offered a way for users to view a saved version of a web page as it appeared when Google last crawl. It was useful to access content when the original web page was down, slow, or had changed significantly. 

It also was a helpful way for SEO experts to view how Google viewed their web page. They did this by comparing the cached version with the ranked page.