Renaming of Link within Site Links - Brand Issues
-
Hi,
We welcome your thoughts on the current problem we are experiencing:
When searching for our client's brand name, their previous sponsors name is shown within the Site Links to a very important page. We are keen to change this reference within the Site Link but keep the link itself.
We have untaken the following without any change to the words used within this particular Site Link:
1) Removal of previous-sponsors name sitewide:
- Title tags
- Alt attribute
- Anchors
- Page names
- Image names
2) Removal of sponsors name from 200+ sister sites:
- Title tags
- Alt attribute
- Anchors
- Page names
- Image names
3) Modification of [previous-sponsor + client] within Wikipedia:
There were 250+ mentions of the sponsor + client within Wikipedia. References have either been deleted or changed to past tense. (Google has been extremely slow at indexing these changes.)4) Removal of off-site mentions:
After using Advanced Filters within OSE, we extracted all links that included the previous-sponsors name. We filtered these by DA and approached these sites and requested they update their links/on-site content to include the up-to-date name. This included large news organisations and reference sources.We also used Google operators (inurl, inanchor, intitle) to search for references mentions of [previous-sponsor + client]. We used Buzzstream to collate this data and contacted hundreds of sites sorted by DA.
5) We have twice requested demotion of the Site Link via GWT without success. Google clearly see's the Site Link as too important to remove it.
The following is useful background information:
The [client + previous-sponsor] worked together for 5+ years. Our client is known by it's own brand, but it was also called in certain arenas as [client + previous-sponsor].
Fresh mentions of [client + previous-sponsor] are frequent. Examples of this are from collectors merchandise and videos that are posted frequently.The page being shown within the Site Links is essential. It cannot be moved. With a PA of mid-70's.
We have changed the Title of the page multiple times, without any change to the Site Link.Thanks
Phil -
Thanks David and Jarno,
I thought the following may be useful to you. After extensive testing, we followed this process to remove the Sitelink:
We added <meta name="robots" content="index, nofollow">only to the page shown within the Sitelinks. Within our tests we found removing the page within GWT only elongated the removal process, therefore we refrained from doing this. Within GWT we did a Fetch and Render to inform Google of the change.</meta name="robots">
Within less than 24 hours the Sitelink was removed from the SERPs and organic sessions have not been effected whatsoever.
Feel free to ask further questions if you'd like further information.
Thanks,
Phil -
I agree with David,
I would also use a 301 redirect to a new page. You'll catch all the traffic going to the old page that way and also if Google visits it will follow that path. You could then even notice that Google changed the site link for you. It has happened on several occasions.
Regards
Jarno -
Have all the pages on all the sites you control and have revised been resubmitted? If you leave it to Google to do this on their own, it will take a very long time, most likely years before they are all gone. Even tho its a very simple tool, try using the "fetch as Google" tool in Webmaster tools. This can be done on both an individual URL basis, or you can resubmit the entire page and all its connected links. Once you have submitted all the offending URL's that contain the revised information, refresh the sitemap, and resubmit the entire site(s).
For the Wiki pages that you dont own, it will take a long time for the indexed result to change, but as long as the information on the page that it links to doesnt contain the information you dont want, you are fine. Since Wiki is so large, it may take some time for them to revise that indexed data. On the other hand, since Wiki is so big and is most likely crawled daily by Google, you might see chnages quickly. How long has it been since you modified the info?
For the on site issues, if you are seeing a very slow reindex of the modified pages, you could also create entirely new pages, and have the old page 301 redirect to the new one that does not contain the sponser.
One more thing you could try is a press release stating that the alliance no longer exists. Word it in a positive light.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Is it feasible to try to compete with an established site with a fresh domain any time soon?
Currently I'm looking at a competitor who owns a site with the following metrics: Domain Authority - 39 /100
Branding | | chrisjimallen
Page Authority - 49 /100
Spam Score: 1 /17
93 Root Domains
2,199 Total Links
Page Social Metrics
Facebook - 431 Shares, 17 Likes I'm thinking it would take 12 months+ to become a viable competitor, but thats a complete guess. What are peoples thoughts on undertaking something like this?0 -
Passing "link juice" from old domain to new domain
I am purchasing several websites from the company I work for and starting my own company. 1.The websites have not been updated in several years
Branding | | RoxBrock
2. The websites have poor SEO rankings
3. Though bad inbound links have been removed, there may still be some added by a black-hat SEO company I would like to start a new website and move all the content to that site. My questions are: 1. Will it hurt my new website rankings if I redirect the old site content to my new site and delete the old sites--due to possible bad inbound links, losing rank due to redirects (I have lost rank from redirecting in the past)? 2. If related, isn't it better to put all the content on one website? Thank you.0 -
Best practice for links from client sites to your site
As a webdesigner, I tend to place a link to my website in the footer of sites I build.
Branding | | Crocodesign
I consider this a form of brand awareness and reputation building, with nice SEO benefits. What is the SEO best practice in this case ? Link to a page in your portfolio describing your work on the site ? Sending all the links to the homepage ? What about the link text ?0 -
Issue with the company's brand name in SERPs
Any suggestions on how to solve this without the need to be ranked for something not related?
Branding | | GardenPet0 -
Experience/suggestions in redirecting old URLs (from an existing site) to new URLs under a new domain
Please share your experiences/suggestions in redirecting a set of pages (10,000 or more pages/URLs) from an existing domain to new URLs under a new domain. Thanks in advance!
Branding | | esiow20130 -
Can anything be done for a single brand page on a corporate site?
I was asked by a friend if there was anyway I could help promote the watch brand that they are responsible for. The brand has only one page on the corporate site. http://gevrilgroup.com/fortis-watches/ My first reaction is that this is impossible to do without creating a stand alone web site and then doing some super cool marketing to get your brand noticed out of the sea of watch manufacturers. My second gut reaction is to stand clear of this request and not get myself tangled in something that will require a lot of resources for someone on a low budget. Any suggestions?
Branding | | irvingw0 -
Tips for promoting the blog section of our eCommerce site
Hi, With the recent Google updates we're thinking that unique content is more important than ever in order to gain high quality, natural links from genuine users. As such we're thinking that our blog (http://www.refreshcartridges.co.uk/igloo/) might be more important than ever. Don't be put off by the lack of Page Authority or Google Page Rank; we've only just moved to this address from the subdomain igloo.refreshcartridges.co.uk. The content is certainly rather niche; an article like http://www.refreshcartridges.co.uk/igloo/how-to-the-reset-purge-counter-on-a-brother-printer-with-a-numerical-pad/ will be helpful to thousands of users who own this particular range of printer but it's debatable as to whether it is sufficiently mainstream to be openly shared and linked to. We ping to sites such as Technorati, produce videos to accompany much of the content (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-dxmm4-blN8&list=UUH93Kwax4CcEIAOsXWb6CiA&index=1&feature=plcp for example) and provide easy sharing buttons. I do however think that we could be doing more to actively ‘push’ this content on to potential customers. I'm not naive enough to think that niche articles like this will be enough to get hundreds of links and tens of thousands of reads but printer news, reviews and support is pretty much the only thing we can write about while being relevant to our core business. I would however like to get the best exposure that we can for these articles which is why I’m asking for your advice today. I would really appreciate any ideas you may have as to how else we could gain the best value from these unique articles and videos. I apologise for this being such an open ended question but any and all advice on how to maximise this resource would be appreciated. Many thanks!
Branding | | ChrisHolgate0 -
BRAND STACKING!!!1!11! (angry fist)
I have been noticing a pattern with my highest ROI keywords. The company I work for sells a ton of different brands. Over the last month one by one my ranks are droping down by about three to the parent companys brand stack. Now I know that Google favors brands but it seems in the last month they have become much more aggressive with brand stacking. Has anyone else noticed this problem or has there been some action on the part of Google to make this happen?
Branding | | Brother220