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 -
Official Site label in Bing SERPs
A colleague noticed a few major brands have labels like "official site" in their Bing listings and they also seem to get a "Customer Service phone number" included as their rich snippet under the meta title. My guess was they possibly have schema mark-up on the page, but I was wondering if anyone else knows how else they could have landed this extra snippet? Thanks in advance! mveXoj7
Branding | | ATShock0 -
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 -
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 -
How hard is it for a national brand to win for Superlative qualified non-brand keywords?
Is it worth trying to target non-brand keywords with qualifiers like: best, top, good? Naturally review or comparison sites are built to target these keywords/searches, but can big brands compete in this landscape? Does anyone have any good examples?
Branding | | GSI0 -
High authority brand expanding product line, domain question
Hi MOZers, I've been given a handy little domain puzzle to deal with and would love insight from the community. Here's the situation: We're retailers of one specific, big, nationally known product. Let's pretend it's the Snuggee (IT'S NOT). People search for it and buy it from our site, or from Amazon or other retailers that we distribute it to. We're about to expand to carry a bunch of related, but different products - so from a one-product brand to 5 or 6 different items, relating to different keyword searches. Imagine Snuggee people want to start selling a whole bunch of products that solve the same needs of warming the front of your body and making you look silly. The owners want to change the main domain from [specific product] to [name similar to specific product, but is more general]. What concerns me is how to handle the fame of the branded product in terms of domain names. Current domain, based on that product, has a ton of links and a decent age. Owners are thinking to redirect everything to fresh new unestablished domain. While I know 301s will pass most link value, it will also be a home page that will be about a bunch of products - not just that main known one. In fact, we're considering making a URL for each product as landing page, of which old famous product would be one of 5 or 6 pages. Two main options we're considering right now: Keep old domain as a doorway page featuring just old product, with same look and feel, and from which any links would point to the new domain. Try to keep this as ranking for top result for this search, which should be easy. Unify everything under new domain, with old product being featured on a separate page / subdirectory. Hope that new home page still can rank pretty well for our old product, even though it will be talking about other products now as well. What we'd stand to lose would be the SERP for old products featuring too many big box retailers that sell our stuff and take a chunk out of our margins. The goal is to help us become known for many things, while still being always the best search result for what we're already known for. Which of those two options seem best, or is there another I'm missing altogether? Thank you!
Branding | | advancedSemiotics0 -
Will new site have any effect on main site ?
Hi, We have a successful ecommerce site at www.printerbase.co.uk but we are now branching out and will soon be offering services which we are going to do through a different website with a possible URL of something like www.printerbasesolutions.co.uk so my question is, will having two websites containing the word printerbase have any negative effect on the ranking of www.printerbase.co.uk or would we be better having a completely different URL? The new site is not going to have any ecommerce functionality it is going to be more about offering the services we can give to clients and encouraging them to get in contact with us. Thanks BigJoe
Branding | | BigJoe0 -
Facebook Like of Root Domain Linked To Facebook Page
If I install a Facebook Like Button on my Root Domain, How can I have the likes accumulated from that button augment those already on my brand's page? Thank you fellow knowledgenies of the Book of Face.
Branding | | Blobe0