Questions about site names
This thread is to answer some common questions about site names. If you are having site name issues, you can also share feedback in this thread.
PLEASE NOTE: This thread is not intended to produce a specific change to a specific issue with a site name. Instead, we’ll consider this feedback for possible improvements to how site names are generated generally.
PLEASE NOTE: This thread is not intended to produce a specific change to a specific issue with a site name. Instead, we’ll consider this feedback for possible improvements to how site names are generated generally.
Site names timeline
- October 2022: Site names for the domain level were introduced for mobile search results for English, French, German and Japanese.
- April 2023: Site names were added for desktop for the same set of languages. Later in this month, we also released an update to how our system selected site names.
- May 2023: Site names support was added on the subdomain level for the same set of languages and on mobile search results only.
- July 2023: Site names support was added on the subdomain level for the same set of languages for desktop search results. We also released a further improvement in how our system selects site names and updated our documentation. See our blog post for more.
Resources & Support
Provide a site name to Google Search is our guidance about how to help us understand what site name to show for your site. We encourage you to review that guidance to resolve any issues, especially the troubleshooting section.
If you have followed that guidance and still aren’t seeing your preferred site name, feel free to share your situation below. In particular, provide your site’s home page URL, the site name you expected to see and the site name you actually see.
Please note: We do not use reports in this thread to make specific changes for particular sites. Instead, we use the reports to understand how to make general improvements to our system that generates site names.
FAQ
Below are some questions we’ve had. We may add to these over time.
Q: Why is my URL is showing instead of a site name?
A: If your URL is showing rather than a site name, this doesn’t represent an error but instead that our systems aren’t confident enough to show a site name for your site. This can be for a variety of reasons and might change over time. Consult our guidance and ensure you’re making use of your preferred site name in the areas that help us determine this.
Q: Why is my site that’s in a subdirectory is not showing my preferred site name?
A: Site names are not supported for subdirectories (for example, https://example.com/news is a subdirectory-level home page and cannot have its own site name). See our technical guidance for more.
Q: Why is my site name on my home page not appearing on or is different from what shows for my internal pages?
A: This is a known issue in some cases that we’re working to address. Please see our documentation for more.
Il se peut que les contenus de la communauté ne soient pas validés ou à jour. En savoir plus
However, if our system is less confident in a name you provided, it may sometimes generate site names using other sources or show a domain or subdomain name.
It seems likely the system sees the name you've selected as too generic, as also explained on the page:
Avoid using a generic name. A generic name like "Best Dentists In Iowa" is unlikely to be selected by our system as a site name, unless that's an extremely well-recognized brand name.
Given this, you should look to follow the advice in the troubleshooting section, in particular about providing alternative names to be considered.
Matheus. (Community Manager) a recommandé ceci
Toutes les réponses (173)
However, if our system is less confident in a name you provided, it may sometimes generate site names using other sources or show a domain or subdomain name.
It seems likely the system sees the name you've selected as too generic, as also explained on the page:
Avoid using a generic name. A generic name like "Best Dentists In Iowa" is unlikely to be selected by our system as a site name, unless that's an extremely well-recognized brand name.
Given this, you should look to follow the advice in the troubleshooting section, in particular about providing alternative names to be considered.
Matheus. (Community Manager) a recommandé ceci
16 janv. 2025
Dernière modification : 16 janv. 2025
26 févr. 2025
10 déc. 2024
Google suddenly started showing “DGEG” instead of “دیوار” as the site name in search results. The homepage and some pages display the correct name, “دیوار,” while others show “DGEG.” This is particularly strange since Divar is a major brand in Iran and is recognized as an entity in Google’s Knowledge Graph.
The issue began exactly on the last day of the November 2024 Core Update. We have verified the WebSite structured data on the homepage, og:site_name, titles, headings, and other relevant elements. “DGEG” does not appear anywhere in our page sources (see the attached screenshots illustrating this unusual behavior).
To address this, I changed the name property in the WebSite structured data to “سایت دیوار,” suspecting that the issue might be related to the generic nature of the name, even though “دیوار” is one of the most recognized brands in Iran. Additionally, I added “divar.ir” as the alternateName in the structured data as a last resort, but the issue persists on internal pages.
17 déc. 2024
18 déc. 2024
Hi All,
I have a question and would be very grateful if someone could address it.
I have a question and would be very grateful if someone could address it.
I’ve noticed that social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and LinkedIn display custom site names for profile pages.
![]()
However, I’m unable to find any documentation on how to configure this.
Can someone help me understand how this works and how we can implement the same?
2 janv. 2025
15 janv. 2025
14 janv. 2025
Update: ~4 weeks after adding the alternateName to the schema, the site name in SERPs is now displaying correctly.
our site name for a subdomain is not showing in search results as instructed via (validated) schema. I also added an alternateName with the desired name to tip the scale, but no success so far. The branding to the correct city is quite crucial for search performance here:
It seems understandable, what's going on: the parent domain name, which is branded to Hamburg, is being cascaded to the subdomain. But it shouldn't be, when there's clear schema for the subdomain naming, right?
Thank you!
Dernière modification : 10 févr. 2025
16 janv. 2025
Schema validated and followed documentation steps. HELP!!
29 janv. 2025
Subject: Assistance Required – Incorrect Site Name Displayed in Google Search
Hi,
I’m experiencing an issue with our website https://qphi.org.qa/ in Google search results. When searching for "QPHI", Google incorrectly displays the site name as "Qatar Biobank" instead of the correct name.
Despite multiple recrawls, the incorrect site name persists. We have thoroughly checked our website's code and metadata, and there is no mention of "Qatar Biobank" anywhere.
We need assistance in either removing this incorrect site name or updating it to the correct one. Could you please help us resolve this issue?
Thank you.
Best regards,31 janv. 2025
I am facing site name related issues as well and would appreciate if someone can help me out.
My website/Saas application name is "SMS Textr". However, the sitename shows up as "Google" instead of "SMS Textr". The url is https://smstextr.web.app.
*We know that this is a google subdomain and that's probably the reason why the site name shows up as "Google" instead of "SMS Textr". However, we've seen multiple sites with the same sitename.web.app url where the sitename shows up correctly (example: https://ezmatch.web.app/).
We have the meta property site_name set as <meta property="og:site_name" content="SMS Textr">
We have added structured data (application/ld+json) with the Organization set to SMS Textr and WebSite set to SMS Textr as well.
We have tried to go to the Google search console and request the homepage be reindexed but nothing seems to work. If anyone has any pointers for us that we can try and get our site name displayed properly as "SMS Textr", it would be greatly appreciated.
13 févr. 2025
Hello,
I am experiencing an issue with the site name in search results. I am hosting a website for free using Cloudflare, and while the site is successfully crawled and appears in search results, the displayed site name is "Cloudflare" instead of my intended name.
To resolve this, I added the following code to the main page, but it does not seem to have any effect:
html
<script type="application/ld+json">
{
"@context" : "https://schema.org",
"@type" : "WebSite",
"name" : "xxxx 2025",
"alternateName" : "xxxx 2025",
"url" : "https://xxxx2025.pages.dev"
}
</script>
(Due to privacy concerns, I am unable to share the URL and name)
(Due to privacy concerns, I am unable to share the URL and name)
Is there any way to fix this issue and ensure that the correct site name is displayed in search results?
Thank you!
14 mars 2025
Dernière modification : 14 mars 2025
20 mars 2025
We are experiencing sitename issues on the following websites:
- AskSportsInfo – The sitename is not being picked up by Google.
- GoGrowIn – The sitename was previously displaying correctly but has suddenly stopped showing.
Could you please help us identify the issues and guide us on how to fix them so the sitenames appear in Google search results?
Thanks in Advance.
Karthik Ramalingam