Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
Why is Google appending a different website's brand name to the end of SERP title?
-
I've recently been shown some SERP results where Google is appending a different website's brand name to the end of the SERP title. It's actually rewriting the brand's name to that of the other website. (This is obviously not ideal.) Why would this be?
The other website doesn't even stock the same product, so there shouldn't be any confusion there. But even if it did, many websites stock the same products. Just confusing...
-
That's a tough one. If you want to DM me the url (or email it to me at marie at marie haynes dot com) I'd be happy to take a quick look.
-
Hi Marie. Thanks for your response.
I'm a bit hesitant to share the examples for my client's privacy. I hope you understand. I do not work on these websites' SEO, I was only asked to look into it to see if I can spot anything that could be causing this. I do, however, work for a larger website that owns both the websites, so that's why I've been asked.
The two businesses share the same address. I was thinking that this may be a factor, but neither site has a Google My Business listing or much in the way of offsite citations. No DMOZ listings.
There are no external canonicals in place, and no mention of the others' URL on the respective sites. Double checked
No duplicate content as both sites sell different products with no overlap, so no duplicate product listings or content. The two sites are not even competing in SERPs for any similar keywords.
-
This is an unusual question. Any chance you could share the example with us?
Do the two websites have much duplicate content between them? Google may be applying a canonical if they think it is duplicate content. Any chance that a canonical was inadvertently placed by you? (I know that's probably pretty unlikely.)
Any chance this has something to do with the businesses' DMOZ listing?
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Why not just use an alias if the only change is a different domain Name?
We are rebranding our store with a new name. We have purchased a NewDomainName. Can I just make the "Old Domain Name" an alias for the "NewDomainName"? The site will not change in any other way than having a new logo. This is an e-commerce site with over 100 categories of artisan made products. So once we move the site, the old domain will be empty. Thank you Stephen
Branding | | stephenfishman1 -
Two companies merging into a new website. How to merge two existing websites into a brand new website and preserve search rankings.
Brand A and Brand B are merging to form Brand C. Brand A has a great search presence (prominent rankings, answer boxes, and impressive organic traffic). Brand B has a good reputation in real life but their web presence was extremely weak (we've been helping with that over the past few months and it is improving). What are the steps we need to take? The previous domains from Brand A and Brand B are going away and we need to promote the newly minted Brand C website. This Q/A summarizes what we want to do but with one exception: They only discuss merging Brand A into BRand B and there is no Brand C.
Branding | | CommandPartners0 -
How to measure adwords campaing success on an non ecommerce/leads website
Hello,
Branding | | teconsite
We have a website of a furniture company that runs an Adwords campaign. This company has a lot of distributors. They have several objetives: people explore the online catalog people visit the distributor page (where they can find the nearest distributor in his/her area) people share the pictures and info in social media. (For example: pictures in pinterest) people watch videos new distributors contact them to be a new distributor and so on. As this is not an eccommerce website they can not buy We have created objectives in analytics to meassure those engament results.
My question is how to measure this in Google Adwords...
If I import GA objetives into adwords, I get conversions rates of 350% and even more, and the number of conversions is to high. For example. If one objetive is to visit Distributors page (the one where users can see a map and search for the nearest distributor), I find with a lot of conversions of this type. I was thinking in importing some objectives and giving them a value in $ and instead of evaluating conversion rates, evaluate ROAS. But I really would like to know, what you are doing with this kind of companies. How do you measure the campaign success when most of the objetives are measuring engagement. Please, could you give me any advice? Thank you!0 -
In the Google search results, the company name (with the drop down arrow) next to the result URL is incorrect. The company being displayed here is a company we acquired many years back. How do I adjust/fix this?
When I search any term for my organization, we are getting good results BUT the company name, next to the results URL is of an orgnization we acquired many years back and not the name of our company. The URL is correct page JUST the company name next to this URL is incorrect on the Google search results page. How do I go about changing so the company name next to the URL ?
Branding | | DigitalNTT0 -
Where Does Google Pull the Photo From When You Search For Your Brand?
Hi All, In doing a search for our brand from our corporate HQ (Learning Tree), I came across a large embedded "ad" so to speak on the right hand side front and center of one of our locations (see attached photo). Clearly this is from Google's Knowledge Graph. We aren't pleased with the photo of a computer screen pulling randomly from our website...we are OK with the map listing though. Anyway to change this? As a note, when you search for "Learning Tree International" (our more official name as the entity as a whole - we have many locations around the world, and also one near our corporate HQ, which is the one that's displaying when you search "Learning Tree" alone), much better imagery of our logo is displayed. That's coming from our corporate G+ page. Any suggestions? Thank you. s0C5ZpT&hXaLhE7 s0C5ZpT&hXaLhE7#1
Branding | | CSawatzky0 -
Domain name with a hyphen
I am looking at starting a brand new website and purchasing a domain to see my hair product. My question is that domain i am wanting to purchase if a 2 word .com domain but it is not being currently used and it is up for auction for 10K. I am looking a purchasing a domain name that is the same 2 words but a has a hyphen between the 2 works. My assumption is that if I start building content, concentrating on seo (keywords, link building, etc) and brand building that I should not have any problems with my hyphen in the domain. I am looking for feedback and insight from the SEO professionals! Thank you guys in advance. UPDATED 1-29-13 Here is the scenario and I am looking on how you would handle it. **name = my brand name I am looking to purchase a domain within the year: namehair.com I currently am using: namehairbrand.com I have purchased: name-hair.com My concern is if I began my SEO efforts and the brand grows extensively then the person who owns "namehair.com" will raise the price even more than the current price of 10k. I plan on purchasing that domain name within the next 18 months or so and then direct the traffic to the domain "namehair.com". If I put all my efforts into "namehairbrand.com" and then submit to Google that I have changed domains - will I get my butt kicked by Google? Thank you guys - you are really helpful!
Branding | | dsmolinski0 -
Google auto-correct affecting one of my keywords
Hi there, I have a keyword "finao montreal" that used to rank 8 or 9 in Google serp. All of a sudden it dropped under the top 50 results, I was wondering why and I found out that Google now auto-corrects "finao montreal" to "final montreal". Finao is a well know brand of custom high-end photo albums and I find it strange that Google corrects it. Anyone has an idea on what to do with this situation? Is there a way to provide Google some feedback about the autocorrect?
Branding | | valadas0 -
How much would or have you pay for a domain name?
I wasn't asking the question from a complete lack of experience but I put this question on the forum here last week…How much would you pay for a key rich domain name with the correct extension? I'm setting up a new website to sell Whitby Jet and one of the members of this forum suggested I should buy the domain name www.whitbyjet.com it was for sale for $300 or £200 in UK money and they thought it was a bargain. I thought it was worth the cost even though I've never paid anywhere near that amount for a domain name.
Branding | | whitbycottages
.
There is a company offering www.whitby-jet.co.uk or £1500 ?!!!! I have bought key rich domain names before, which were very descriptive also but only paid the registration fee with no additional costs
.
I just wondered how much members of this forum have paid for domain names. And why they thought it was worth the cost... SEO Branding etc.? By the way the company that was acting as the intermediate for my new doaminis is an absolute pain. They didn't perform the transfer process quickly until I bombarded them with emails My new domain is still not working one week down the line. In the past I bought a domain cheap and it has been working within 24 hours directly.0
