SEARCHENGINES

Google Updates Site Names In Search Results

Published

4 months ago

July 29, 2023

As Google promised, it has updated its support for site names in its search results. Google said it has expanded support for subdomains and also has compiled more information on how site names work in Google Search. Plus, Google had documented a few workarounds for when it does not work.

Google said, “We now support subdomains on all devices in these languages. In addition, we recently updated how the site names system works, to increase its ability to make selections that are representative of sites listed in search results.”

Google said it has updated that documentation to “encourage more use of the alternateName property.” Why? Google said that sometimes a preferred site name is not available. Google listed this example, “our system generally won’t use the same site name for two different sites that are global in nature. Providing an alternative name using the alternateName property allows our system to consider other options, if your preferred choice isn’t selected.”

Google posted a workaround in its help documents for when it does not work. Google wrote:

(1) First, try providing an alternative name using the alternateName property.

(2) Provide your domain or subdomain name as a backup option.

(3) If that’s still not working, then try providing your domain or subdomain name (in all lowercase) as your preferred name, as a last-resort workaround option.

Google also said they are “aware that 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, https://example.com/ might be showing a site name that’s different from https://example.com/internal-page.html.”

Note, we did notice some changes to site names in the past couple of days. I reached out to Google and did not hear back, so I guess this is what we saw.

Google introduced the site name feature last October for mobile and last March for desktop search.

Google has been having some issues with site names since it launched, asking SEOs for feedback and then pushing out a fix for some site names back in April but the issues linger on for many.

Here is my post from a couple of days ago:

I’m definitely seeing some improvements! 🙂 https://t.co/P6UF4WbUL6

— Glenn Gabe (@glenngabe) July 26, 2023

I am seeing a lot of improvements from some of the examples posted in the Google Webmaster Help forums:

Before:

After:

Before:

After:

Before:

After:

But not all are resolved, so maybe these workarounds can help them?

Forum discussion at Twitter and Google Webmaster Help.

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Related Topics:Google Names Results Search searchengine Site Updates

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SEARCHENGINES

Google Hanukkah Decorations Are Live For 2023

Published

3 days ago

December 3, 2023

Entireweb News Bot

Hanukkah (aka Chanukah) starts this coming Thursday night, December 7th. Google has added its Hanukkah decorations to the Google Search results interface to celebrate. Google does this every year and I expect to see the same rollout in the coming weeks for Christmas and Kawanzaa but for now, since Chanukah is in the coming days, we have the Hanukkah decorations live at Google Search.

Here is a screenshot of the Chanukah decorations as they look like on the mobile search results.

You can see it yourself by searching on Google for [chanukah], [hanukkah], but not yet [חֲנוּכָּה‎] or other spelling variations yet but it should soon. It looks better on mobile than it does on desktop results.

To see the past, the 2023 decorations, 2021 decorations, 2020 Chanukah decorations, 2019 Google holiday decorations, the 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013, 2012, 2011, 2010 and so on.

Happy Chanukah, everyone!

Forum discussion at X.

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SEARCHENGINES

Google Pay Accepted Icons In Google Search Results

Published

3 days ago

December 3, 2023

Entireweb News Bot

Google seems to be testing a Google Pay Accepted label or icon in the Google search results. This label has the super G logo followed by the words “Pay accepted” words next to search result snippets that support Google Pay and notate such in their structured data.

This was first spotted by Khushal Bherwani who shared some screenshots of this on X – here is one:

Here are some more screenshots:

Here is test and without test window for same query. pic.twitter.com/n9cYWBOsro

— Khushal Bherwani (@b4k_khushal) October 20, 2023

Brodie Clark also posted some screenshots after on X:

In continuation from the test from October, Google is now testing out a new Google Pay label associated with organic results. Last month, Google was testing Pay Accepted text, with this month changing it to Pay encrypted checkout. More details: https://t.co/MvFNoPmMDR pic.twitter.com/WDVVc4RbTO

— SERPs Up 🌊 (@SERPalerts) November 30, 2023

I tried to replicate this but I came up short.

This is not the first time Google had similar icons like this in its search results.

Forum discussion at X.

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SEARCHENGINES

Google Discover Showing Older Content Since Follow Feature Arrived

Published

4 days ago

December 2, 2023

Entireweb News Bot

Typically, Google Discover shows content that is less than a day old, but it can show content that is weeks, months, or even years old. However, typically, Google will show more recent content in the Discover feed. Well, that may have changed with the new Google follow feature.

Glenn Gabe, who is a very active Google Discover user, noticed that since the Follow feature rolled out, he has been seeing content that is weeks and months old way more often than before the follow feature rolled out. Glenn wrote on X that “this could also be playing a role. i.e. Google isn’t providing as much recent content, but instead, focusing on providing targeted content based on the topics you are following.”

It makes sense that if you follow a specific topic and if Google Discover only shows the most authoritative types of content, it might be hard for Google to find new content on that topic. So it does make sense that Google may show older content more often for that specific topic you follow.

Here are screenshots Glenn shared:

Google Discover Old Stories Follow