When Company names confuse search
-
I am currently perplexed over a client's search results. They are an established company and well known in their field. (Unfortunately, I am not comfortable providing a link or their name.) The company is a consulting firm and let's assume it is an accounting firm, which it is not. When you search on BSC Accounting the results give them the first result but the next 18 results are around education - BSc Accounting. Consider the DA on the site is 34 and the PA for homepage is 39.
Is there a chance that when someone is searching on accounting firms that having the BSC in the name skews what they are able to rank for? Forget about searches for their exact name, I am more interested in thoughts as to how the BSC effects general searches for their specialties.
-
Very interesting question.
I'm also wondering if BSC + accounting (as an example) impedes your client's ability to rank because of lowered brand ranking signals. B.Sc. audiences are bound to bounce more and spend far less time on page and site. They're unlikely to link to you when they might, in fact, link to one of your B.Sc. competitors.
-
Sounds like the name change might be a good suggestion, Robert, given this scenario. Good luck with this!
-
I think I get what you are querying. What you are saying is, can Google give a wild mix of results, when Google is confused in terms of where the user wants to go? Do Google's query-spaces, contain search-entities (thematic entities) which collide with each other, when the keywords are fuzzy around the edges?
Yes that is a common thing, it's partially by design and partially an error on Google's part. It's also just down to how users search.
If Google's machine-learning detects that, usually when people type in "bsc" they are actually looking for "b.sc" (B.Sc) - then the search results will collide and impact on each other. Google uses a lot of data to tell, which search results users were happy with. But sometimes, Google gets stuck - because one acronym (or search term) genuinely means two or more things and competing groups of users want the results to swing 'their' way.
Obviously, if Google just made the query-space about one thing, there would be 100% chance that a certain group of search users (who enter the query-space) would be dissatisfied regularly. In these situations, the query-space hedges its bets and supplies mixed results, which may vary in intensity (one way or the other) based on 'personalised' search (so the query-space also becomes more variable)
I see you have already discovered that either search produces very similar search results. That is a strong indicator that two query-spaces have 'collided' to some degree. When I checked in AdWords, Google did see "B.Sc" (corrected to "b sc" with a space) and "bsc" (not corrected) as distinct, but if placed into the keyword planner individually (to find keyword ideas) they came back with very similar stuff. That's what I'd call a 'partial' query-space collision
At the point where Google corrects one of the two keywords to the other, that's full-impact
-
Hello Miriam,
Yes, the firm name conflicts with same term for B.Sc. I am readying a document where I suggest we change the business name and at first I thought, "we could just go to a different URL," but then I realized that doesn't change all the content with BSC in it.
I agree the key is searcher intent and that is what validates at least having a discussion about changing the company name.
Thanks as always for your great insight.
Robert
-
Hi Robert!
By BSC are you talking about the educational term Bachelor of Science? If so, then Google would almost certainly be trying to parse the intent of a search phrase containing that term. If I name my meteorology store "Weather Near Me", Google is going to have a very hard time knowing that customers are looking for my store and not for a forecast for their area. Sounds like this may be what's happening to your client ... that their name is too much like a more general search phrase, causing Google to diversify the SERPs because they aren't 100% certain about searcher intent.
If I'm not understanding, please feel free to provide more details.
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 having a lot traffic off branded search terms boost non-branded terms?
A site I work for has tons of organic traffic coming from branded terms like BRAND, www.brand.com, BRAND + Product, BRAND + question, etc. They also have a lot of non-branded terms, coming through. Overall a strong site. I've also seen websites for lawyers on TV with plenty of spammy links, almost no good ones, but nonetheless they rank well for their terms. My intuition says these are related, that the more people search for your brand, the more Google recognizes your authority relative to your keywords. Is this possible, or am I misguided?
Branding | | krausdigital0 -
Mentions if domain slightly different to brand name
Hi, Just a question/discussion regarding mentions. I have read for the last few years that Google is able to give credit to websites who get mentioned without a link. Even a few months ago there was a big article on the Google update at the end of last year saying how mentions would become an even stronger signal than a link. My question is, if anyone knows, is there any evidence that Google and other search engines are able to give ranking credit to websites whose brand name is slightly different from the domain? Can the search engines figure out that it is the same thing? If not, then there must be a lot of brands missing out. Thanks.
Branding | | Brian_Dowd0 -
A problem when our brand name is searched
We have an issue in that when someone enters our new brand name "68 degrees creative" into google.com.au, the following results show: http://postimg.org/image/8x2id4ta9/ The second result is the Linked In page for Hiroshi. This is a person that was part of our old business but is no longer part of the new business (68 degrees creative). And therefore, his LinkedIn profile should not be appearing for this search as he has nothing to do with the new brand. In his LinkedIn profile, he has made no mention of our organisation 68 degrees creative. He also does not feature on our website: www.68degrees.com.au. We can therefore only conclude that the reason he is appearing for the search "68 degrees creative" is that Google has somehow connected him with the new organisation due to previous online ties and relationships which Google has determined by virtue of that associated him with the new organisation. We are ultimately unsure what their algorithm is in establishing this. Is there any way in which we can change this? We don't want his LinkedIn profile appearing when our company name is searched when he has not part of the company. Any help here would be greatly appreciated! Thanks.
Branding | | Gavo0 -
Brand Name Cratering - possible N-SEO or Black Hat Attacks
Hello to the Moz Community, Let me start by saying, we are not an SEO company. We are the in-house agency for our parent corp, and the 7 companies in their portfolio. We manage their PPC and other digital items. None of the companies use an SEO company. Their "SEO strategy" is to not have one. They internally post on their own Social Media account, their own Blog, and send out their own Press Releases (which we help write the copy sometimes). One of the accounts encountered a very bizarre, and serious ranking problem around Dec 25th-30th. In the past when you Googled the company's brand name you would get 5-6 pages of internal content show up at the very Top of the results. Pages like Home Page, Blog Home, Contact Us, About Us, Client Reviews Page, etc. (core pages). There were then several other non core pages that would show up in the Top 20 results (my recollection is they controlled about 12-14 of the Top 20 results for the brand name). Unfortunately, around Dec. 25th this all cratered. And the only internal page that would display when you Googled the brand name was the Home Page (totally gone; even checking 100 rankings deep). So the question we have spend weeks trying to figure out is, what in the heck happened? We got together with the company to find out any and all possible changes or things could of happened since the first of December, which could have contributed to this cratering. Here is what we found: #1 The company made an acquisition of a smaller competitor in 2014. Around Dec. 10th they sent out a great press release announcing the acquisition. Since the press release was involving someone in the TV/radio advertising agency industry it was very popular (the best release they ever put out). The release was picked up by over 100 high page rank local TV stations, all across the U.S. (along with the normal companies that pick up online releases). The headline of the release was "Brand Name Reviews Assets of TV Ad Agency Competitor." Most of the stations that picked it up placed "Do not follow" links, but it was still an amazingly successful release. #2 Around Dec. 15th this 8 year old company received their first negative "client review." The review was not from a real client though, it was posted on Rip-Off report by a fake client, the Internet Mafia (reputation management co.) or a former employee/contractor. The posting was deliberately optimized. The URL and the Title Tag contained all sort of words like "Reviews" "Complaints" the "Domain Name," and the Company Brand Name (whoever did it, knew what they were doing). #3 Towards the end of December and into January the company received 6-8 bizarre root domain links. The links show to of come from domains that were just registered in November/December. Yet the domain name was already voluntarily forfeited by the beginning of January. Google Webmaster Tools is still showing the links, but when you go to the domain "all it shows is "cannot be found." WHOIS has screenshots of all of them though. Here is one: http://www.domaintools.com/research/screenshot-history/lizardeyephoto.com/ The domains themselves had nothing to do with the type of business this client account operates in, but the information after the / contained partial pieces of the company brand name. Here is an example: http://www.martygraveyard.com/buying-inexpensive-vehicles-at-on-line-community-automobile-auctions/ I personally don't think 6-8 new root domains could crater a website with 290 root domains (and 1500 links), but maybe those domains/sites are somehow "cloaked;" and they are actually showing bad information to the bots/spiders, but us humans can't see it? I honestly am not educated enough on the subject to know... #4 In mid January, three of the brand name pages returned: Home Page, About Us, Blog Home. However, the other pages are nowhere to be found. The companies Contact Us page, Client Reviews page (which used to rank 2nd), and all of the other Top 20 pages are totally gone. They are still indexed if you do a "site:brandname.com" search, but they won't show up when you Google the brand name. #5 Search results are almost identical with Bing and Google. So, here is the million dollar question: was our client's Brand Name deliberately attacked via an N-SEO Black Hat attack, in an effort to get it their internal pages to drop out of the rankings? Or did Google and Bing incorrectly issue some sort of partial penalty on certain pages due to the amazing success (and them believing it was some sort of link buying scheme) of the Press Release that was sent out at the beginning of December? If you read to the bottom of this, I am grateful for you doing so. Thanks in advance for anyone who tries to help us and our in-house client. Jake
Branding | | SBIM-Jake0 -
Is it ok to correct someone who spelled and styled our name incorrectly in a blog post?
A writer recently recommended my company, Swiftype, in a blog post. However, he called us Swift Type, which adds an additional t, splits our name into two words, and uses an additional capitalization. Would it be out of line to email him and gently correct him? I appreciate the recommendation, and will absolutely focus on thanking him for that, complimenting his content (which is fairly good), and just add the correction at the end of the email. While it isn't a huge deal, a search Swift Type brings up the Swift programming language and SwiftKey as first page results, while Swiftype only displays our content (he also didn't link to us, so a user would have to search to find us - reaching out could also be a chance to spur him to link to us).
Branding | | alecfwilson0 -
Best way to structure a new company blog with multiple existing individual country sites?
Hi, we have a client who have multiple business websites .co.nz, .com.au, .co.uk, .com which all have unique content intending to rank in each country. These sites are on a CMS that has a blog function capability. Should we set up the blog on one of these country sites then link to other sites when appropriate? OR Is it best to set up a new blog on something like Wordpress (or what?) that takes all blog posts from all countries and then links out to the relevant sites when appropriate. So the new blog becomes the content hub and creates its own Google power to then pass when appropriate to the various country sites? Any suggestions welcome especially from people who are currently doing either of these methods, and have experienced the results both positive and negative of the different approaches. NB: there will be about 20 staff creating a blog post on a topic relevant to them per month each once blog is live.
Branding | | OnlineAssetPartners0 -
Acquired Premium Domain, question about Brand name change related to SEO
We recently acquired a premium domain name The domain we were operating on before had a lot of SEO done on it, as well as branding campaigns. Now that we have the premium domain, would it be wise to start doing SEO on the premium domain and discontinue old domain promotions if we plan on changing the brand name? to clear up any confusion, we own for example AAAFurnitureStore.com we acquired the premium domain: AAAFurniture.com should we redirect AAAFurnitureStore.com -> AAAFurniture.com or since we already have established presence/brand do opposite and redirect AAAFurniture.com -> AAAFurnitureStore.com and keep the brand name same as "AAA Furniture Store"?
Branding | | lafurniturestore0 -
Search volumes in YouTube
Hello fellow Mozzers! I just wondered if there was any way of finding out what terms / videos people are searching YouTube for in the same way as getting rough traffic numbers using the AdWords Keyword Suggestion tool? Or even a trends-type tool to give rough indicators as to which terms are currently more popular than others. And what people's opinions are on whether to go after terms that people are frequently putting into YouTube, or terms that are popular in general and hope your video appears in the universal search? Cheers guys, Nick.
Branding | | themegroup0