Google no longer shows the product or brand’s name when you search from your mobile. Instead, it has started showing the website name which is selling that product. Earlier, it used to show the home page of the website while searching.

However, this new change is not applicable to subdomains.

Here’s what Google’s Search Central documentation said on the matter:

“Presently, Google Search helps website names from homepages on the domain level, and never on the subdomain (for instance, https://information.instance.com) and or subdirectory (for instance, https://instance.com/information) stage.”

The new mobile searches show only the general name of the website.

In a mobile search for the website of Minimalist, a Search Engine Results Page (SERP) appears with the common name of Minimalist.

Searches for non-branded keywords still come up with the title tags.

It seems that when combined with the brand name, keyword searches still display the title tag nonetheless.

Why Has Google Started Using Domain Names?

Google aims to make it easy for their users to identify a specific website when they search and thus, a new change has been made.

Google has clarified this move in its official announcement which said:

“Today, Search is introducing site names on mobile search results to make it easier to identify the website that’s associated with each result…”

Along with English, this new feature is also available in other International languages such as French, German, and Japanese. However, the speaker of these languages will be able to access it over the next couple of months as the new change rolls in.

This New Update Does Not Always Function Properly

A search for a mixture of word domain names, such as “Search Engine Journal” and “searchenginejournal,” yields the same search results with the title link being the same as the new site names.

On the other hand, when you search using the compound word website name ‘HubSpot’, the old version search result returns with the title tags.

Search Results for ‘HubSpot’ Keyword Phrase

However, searching for the same website name but adding a space between the two words yields the site name.

Similarly, a search for other compound domain names “Wordfence” and “word fence” shows the same search results for both site names.

So it is clear that Google isn’t consistent in showing site name results for some websites like HubSpot but it is doing so, for many other sites.

Data Organized For New Domain Names

Google recommends using the structured data type of the Webpage.

Originally, the Webpage organized data site was thought to be of no use. It was assumed that Google definitely knows how to identify a website and one does not need structured information to recognize that the tech giant is spam, filtering a website.

That is a thing of the past because Google now uses the WebSite structured data type, particularly the ‘title’ property, to determine what a title tag of a website is.

Google also uploaded an example of WebSite structured data using the ‘title’ property:

The above-mentioned structured information must be displayed on the home page. Google’s Search Central web page for website titles suggests the following for placement of the WebSite structured information:

‘The WebSite structured data must be on the homepage of the site.’ By homepage, we mean the domain-level root URI.

For example, https://example.com is the homepage of the domain, while https://example.com/de/index.html isn’t the homepage.

What if a website has a different name?

The Webpage with structured data is useful because it allows you to tell Google the different names of the website.

Google shows how to do it as follows:

If you want to provide an alternate version of your site name (for example, an acronym or shorter name), you can do this by adding the alternate Name property. This is optional.

Here’s what adding an alternate title to the structured data looks like:

Additional Title of JSON Structured Data

Google makes use of more than structured data

The Google site name documentation maintains that along with structured data, the Google search engine uses on-page, off-page, and metadata information, to determine what a title tag of the website is.

Google interprets the site name using the following points:

● Structured data of a webpage

● Headlines in the title tag (H1, H2, etc.)

● Open Graph Protocol meta information, especially the og: site name

Google Domain Names

On mobile devices, the new site titles characteristic in Google image search appears appealing. For main website product searches, it makes complete sense to reduce the information overload in the SERPs. Despite the fact that a few people are unhappy with the lack of page title impact in such types of search results. Looking for more updates and news, stay tuned to digiPanda.