Originally Posted on The Search Herald by Search Engine Journal
Google resolved a site names issue that had been ongoing since September 2023 that prevented a website’s site name from properly appearing when an inner page was ranked in the search results.
Site Names In The Search Results
A site name is exactly what it sounds like, the name of a website that’s displayed in the search engine results pages (SERPs). This is a feature that allows users to identify the name of the site that’s in the search engine results pages (SERPs).
If your site name is Acme Anvil Company, and that’s how the company is known, then Google wants to display Acme Anvil Company in the search results. If Acme Anvil Company is better known as the AAC and that’s what the company wants to show in the SERPs, then that’s what Google wants to show.
Google allows site owners to use the “WebSite” structured data on the home page to specify the correct site name that Google should use.
Problem Propagating Site Names
Back in September 7, 2023, Google published a warning in their site name documentation that acknowledged they were having problems propagating the site name to the inner pages of a site when those inner pages were shown in the SERPs.
This is the warning that was published:
“Known issue: site name isn’t appearing for internal pages
In some cases, a site name shown for a home page may not have propagated to appear for other pages on that site. For example, example.com might be showing a site name that’s different from example.com/internal-page.html.We’re actively working to address this. We will update this help page when this issue is resolved. In the meantime, if your home page is showing the site name you prefer, understand that it should also appear for your internal pages eventually.”
Google Fixes Site Name Problem
The documentation for the site name problem was recently removed. A changelog for Google documentation noted this:
“Resolving the issue with site names and internal pages
What: Removed the warning about the issue that was preventing new site names from propagating to internal pages.
Why: The issue has been resolved. Keep in mind that it takes time for Google to recrawl and process the new information, including recrawling your internal pages.”
There’s no word on what caused the site name propagation problem but it is interesting that it was finally fixed after all this time because one has to wonder if it took so long because it was low priority or if something on the backend of Google’s systems changed that allowed them to finally fix the issue.
Read Google’s updated site names documentation:
Provide a site name to Google Search
Featured Image by Shutterstock/Cast Of Thousands
