Google now only displays the site’s name on mobile searches, not the entire URL.
Google appears to have stopped displaying title tags for mobile searches across the entire website, such as when searching for the name of a website. Subdomains are not affected by this behavior.
The information at Search Central about site names is as follows:
“Currently, Google Search helps site names from homepages at the domain level, and not at the subdomain (for example, https://news.example.com) and or subdirectory (for example, https://example.com/news) level.”
The SERPs shown in mobile searches display the generic name of the website, not the content on the website. For example, a mobile search for a Search Engine Journal yields a SERP with the generic name Search Engine Journal, not content from the website.
Title tags still appear on non-branded searches for keywords. Title tags also appear on brand-name+keyword searches.
Why Does Google Use Site Names?
Google creates it more straightforward for users to find specific websites by using site names in the search results.
The official announcement from Google explained:
“Today, Search is presenting site names on mobile search results to make it easier to determine the website associated with each result….”
English, French, Japanese, and German are the languages in which this new feature is available. It will become available in other languages over the next few months.
A New Site Names Feature Provides Structured Data
Google is encouraging the utilization of the WebSite’s structured data sorting. Previously, the WebSite structured data website was considered worthless because Google recognizes a website as a website and doesn’t require structured data to realize that Google is indexing websites.
However, the way Google identifies a website’s name has changed. Google now uses the WebSite structured data type, specifically the “name” property, to determine a website’s name. This is how Google describes the WebSite’s structured data with the “name” property in action:
<title>Example: A Site about Examples</title>
<script type=”application/ld+json”>
{
“@context” : “http://schema.org”,
“@type” : “WebSite”,
“name” : “Example”,
“url” : “https://example.com/”
}
</script>
This structured data should be on the homepage.
The following is recommended for WebSite structured data placement on Google’s Search Central page:
“The homepage must include WebSite structured data. The homepage is the domain-level root URI, such as https://example.com. In other words, https://example.com/de/index.html is not the homepage.”
What If A Website Has An Alternative Name?
The WebSite structured data is helpful because it allows you to tell Google what the alternative name for the website is. Google provides instructions on how to do so:
“An alternate name for your site (for example, an acronym or shorter name) can be provided by adding the alternateName property. This is optional.”
An optional name can be added using structured data:
JSON Structured Data For Optional Name
<script type=”application/ld+json”>
{
“@context” : “http://schema.org”,
“@type” : “WebSite”,
“name” : “Example Company”,
“alternateName” : “EC”,
“url” : “https://example.com/”
}
</script>
More Than Structured Data Is Used by Google
In addition to structured data, Google uses on-page, off-page, and meta data information to determine a webpage’s site name. This is how Google understands site names:
- WebSite structured data
- Title tag
- Headings (H1, H2, etc.)
- The Open Graph Protocol provides metadata, including og:site_name.
It is important to note that og:site_name is an optional but recommended Open Graph property.
An Open Graph tag typically appears like this in the HTML code:
<meta property=”og:site_name” content=”Example Name of Site” />
Google Site Names
The new site names element in Google search looks nice on mobile devices. It makes sense to maintain little clutter in SERPs for brand name home page searches, even though I can envision some people being upset about the lack of title tag influence in these searches.
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