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
-
Does a site with only one blog post a month rank alright?
I manage multiple websites and want to start new ones but want to know if one blog post a month is acceptable for SEO since I'm worried about rank.
Branding | | hssm20191 -
About to give up - shall I buy links?
So I have been at this for years! I cannot get Google to improve the rank on my travel site. The site has great relevant content that is constantly updated, it's optimized, has good page speed, active on social media. I have added backlinks where I could. I changed domain name about 4 years ago which probably impacted my rankings at the time. MOZ just did a walk through with me and couldn't really suggest any improvements. I remain with a low domain authority and consistently place under my competitor on Google. Last resort is to buy backlinks through fiverr. Is that a big mistake? https://tamarindobeachinfo.com
Branding | | artsp0 -
The brand drop down doesn't seem to be appearing for any brands in google.com.hk. Is it something which needs to be set up and registered, or automatically rolled out by Google?
In google.com.hk SERPs the brand drop down doesn't seem to be appearing for any brands. Is it something which needs to be set up and registered, or automatically rolled out by Google? And if so is Google just slow rolling out in this part of the world? Thanks
Branding | | seanfhutchinson0 -
Shopping Experience Review Sites UK Market
Hi Have any UK members have experience of the various shopping review sites. I have an ecommerce site I would like to build trust in. I am aware of shopzilla, trustpilot, pricegrabber, Are there any more? Is any one recommended over oters? I checked out Trustpilot and it looks like it costs about £1600 per year basic which I thought was a bit pricey. Curious what experience promotors think and would recommend Thanks Steve
Branding | | StephenCallaghan0 -
High Ranking site with very low amount of texts, HOW?
Hi All, As I was surfing the net, I recently encountered a beautiful and well known site - indochino.com An e-commerce site that sells custom made suits and shirts.
Branding | | BeytzNet
They do not have a brick and mortar store, just the site and built an amazing reputation in about two years (maybe less). The question is....
HOW do they rank high in competitive niches like suits with practically no texts in the website?
Is it "ONLY" because of the amazing UI and Links?
(I thought texts is the king...) There is no blog or any other visible content area besides for the product pages and a couple of explanatory sections which are also with not that much texts... Thanks!0 -
Is duplicating video across several sites a bad thing?
Hi, We have a fairly successful YouTube Channel where we create unique and helpful videos that are related to our core business activity. When we create these videos would you consider it a bad thing to not only post them on YouTube but also a couple of the smaller sites such as Metacafe and Dailymotion? Sending to multiple sites would possibly achieve more total views but would this kind of duplication potentially be harmful to the overall success of the video and have a knock on effect when it comes to how it ranks in Google? Thanks for your help.
Branding | | ChrisHolgate0 -
How to encourage Google to recognize us as a "brand" in the Organic SERPS
You've probably seen that for some searches (most commonly for specific product types) that Google offers something like the following in the SERPS: Related searches for widgets: | Stores: | Widgetland Widgetworld Widgetbarn Amazon |
Branding | | PathMarketing
| Brands: | Widgetdog Superwidgets Widgey | I'm working with a reputable brand of widgets - they're not just a supplier or a retailer, but a company that designs and builds its own. Does anyone know how Google decides which brands are worthy of being recognized in these related searches, and how I can encourage them to recognize our brand similarly? So far I've done the following: Knowem.com brand protection Add products to Amazon Sell our products on eBay List our products on Google Shopping In other words, do what a popular brand would do - appear in many channels, with a large and diverse footprint. Does anyone have any experience with this sort of thing, and how to help a brand get recognized as a brand?5 -
How can I increase my brand signal for a common phrase?
We are having trouble with SEO branding. When I search for "designquotes" with the quotes, our site appears with sitelinks and it's great. However our brand name is Design Quotes. Which sometimes we aren't even first for. If I search for designquotes without the quotes, still no luck. Should we do lots of link building for Design Quotes or should we start calling ourselves DesignQuotes and build links with that as the anchor text? website is designquotes.com.au
Branding | | designquotes0