le Search updates site names and offers workarounds

Google Search has received some much-needed updates regarding the site name feature. Site names can now be displayed on subdomains in English, French and German on all devices. Google has announced that they have also added other improvements, and workarounds for when Google misspells your site name.

Site names. Site names are the title and the name of the website that Google displays in its search results listings. Google explained that when it lists a search result, the name of the website the page is from appears.

Subdomain support has been expanded. Google has added support to mobile devices for English, French German and Japanese site names that have subdomains. It now works on all devices and not just subdomains.

This is an example of a Google site.

Guide updated. Google has also updated their guidance on how you can communicate your preferred name for your site to Google Search. Google wrote: “As a reminder, the best method to communicate a preferred name to Google Search is by using WebSite structure data, as described in our Site Name documentation.”

Google encourages the use of alternateName when a site name that you prefer is not available.

Workarounds to site names. Google has also provided a list of workarounds when Google Search does not select the preferred or alternate names. Google has posted workarounds to its help documentation.

• First try to provide an alternative name by using the alternateName properties. This option is strongly considered if our site name system doesn’t feel confident to use your preferred title.
• Add your domain name or subdomain to the alternate name. For our system to recognize your domain or subdomain as a preferred site name, it must be all lowercase. (For example, Example.com and not Examples.com). If your preferred site name is not selected, our system will strongly consider it. In this example, Burnt Toast was the first choice, followed by BT and finally the domain example.com.
• As a workaround, if that doesn’t work, you can provide your domain name or subdomain (in lowercase) to our system as the preferred name. (We recommend doing this only as a final resort). In this case, only the domain example.com is selected as the preferred name.

Need support. Have you run into problems with the name of your website? Google has posted a thread of support in the Google Support Forums here. It includes more FAQs.

Google has resolved some of the issues we saw with site names. This should fix more of these issues. I have captured some before and after images and posted them on the Search Engine Roundtable.

It looks like this. The site name appears in the search results snippet.

Site names timeline. Google has posted a timeline of site name evolution since October.

• October 20, 2022: Mobile search results now include domain names in English, French German, and Japanese.
• April 20,23 (I had this as March): Sites names for desktop were added to the same set for languages.
• May 2023: Site name support is now available at the subdomain level, for the same languages and only on mobile search results.

Controlling the names of sites. Google explained in October that Google Search uses several methods to identify the name of the site for the search results. If you wish, you can also use structured data to tell Google the name of your website. Google provides detailed documentation about this new Structured data Site Name available here.

Upgrading favicon. Google recommended that you revisit the documentation on favicons to find out the most recent best practices. Google now suggests that you use an icon with a minimum size of 48 pixels, and follow the guidelines for favicons.

Ads. The ad labels, as well as the site names, favicons and ad labels, will also be larger in mobile searches. Google has rolled out the “Sponsored Label” in mobile search and on desktop today, replacing the the “Ads Label” from January 2020.

Why do we care? Google has improved the way it displays your site name and selects it in Google Search. Try these new workarounds if Google still gets it wrong despite your best efforts to follow the documentation.

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