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
-
How to get an Updated Logo in Search Results?
I'm having trouble getting a new logo in search results. My company, RealSelf, updated our logo over a year ago and both Google and Bing continue to show our old logo in image results. Worst of all, this means that when people look for our logo, they find the wrong one and include that in new, external content. Here's a list of what we've tried: We've modified all the logos on our site with the new one (not including a few PDF whitepapers from before the redesign Added schema.org logo and organization markup Featured a high resolution image on our "Logos" page (top result for "RealSelf logo") Verified wikipedia has the proper image Modified all social profile logos: Twitter, Facebook, G+, etc.. Begun outreach efforts to have high ranking image results update our logo I'm wondering if there are other ideas besides getting more creative/successful with our outreach tactics?
Branding | | RealSelf0 -
How to market a brand when the brand name is constantly changing?
I work in an industry where companies are often being bought up by other larger companies. When this happens, there is often a change in the company name to incorporate the parent company name as well. My company is a distributor of these products and I'm wondering if there are best practices for marketing both the original brand name and the new brand name for the same product? We're trying to avoid any duplicate product detail pages, so dynamically generating the same page for two different names is not ideal. Anyone have any tips? Thanks!
Branding | | GalcoIndustrial0 -
When a PPC campaign is instituted what happens to non-branded organic search traffic ?
when a PPC campaign is instituted what happens to non-branded organic search traffic ?
Branding | | Archers0 -
Register a Domain: Brand Name VS Product Name
Hi All, Since Google give more priority to brand names and most of the penalized websites by Google's Penguin update are websites which had links with promoted keywords, is it a good idea to register a new domain by the product name (ex: www.leatherbags.com) ?. Or is it good to register the domain by the company or brand name and then build a reputable brand first before targeting product based keywords (ex: leather bags) ?.
Branding | | Iresh.Dilan1 -
Domain name with a hyphen
I am looking at starting a brand new website and purchasing a domain to see my hair product. My question is that domain i am wanting to purchase if a 2 word .com domain but it is not being currently used and it is up for auction for 10K. I am looking a purchasing a domain name that is the same 2 words but a has a hyphen between the 2 works. My assumption is that if I start building content, concentrating on seo (keywords, link building, etc) and brand building that I should not have any problems with my hyphen in the domain. I am looking for feedback and insight from the SEO professionals! Thank you guys in advance. UPDATED 1-29-13 Here is the scenario and I am looking on how you would handle it. **name = my brand name I am looking to purchase a domain within the year: namehair.com I currently am using: namehairbrand.com I have purchased: name-hair.com My concern is if I began my SEO efforts and the brand grows extensively then the person who owns "namehair.com" will raise the price even more than the current price of 10k. I plan on purchasing that domain name within the next 18 months or so and then direct the traffic to the domain "namehair.com". If I put all my efforts into "namehairbrand.com" and then submit to Google that I have changed domains - will I get my butt kicked by Google? Thank you guys - you are really helpful!
Branding | | dsmolinski0 -
How much would or have you pay for a domain name?
I wasn't asking the question from a complete lack of experience but I put this question on the forum here last week…How much would you pay for a key rich domain name with the correct extension? I'm setting up a new website to sell Whitby Jet and one of the members of this forum suggested I should buy the domain name www.whitbyjet.com it was for sale for $300 or £200 in UK money and they thought it was a bargain. I thought it was worth the cost even though I've never paid anywhere near that amount for a domain name.
Branding | | whitbycottages
.
There is a company offering www.whitby-jet.co.uk or £1500 ?!!!! I have bought key rich domain names before, which were very descriptive also but only paid the registration fee with no additional costs
.
I just wondered how much members of this forum have paid for domain names. And why they thought it was worth the cost... SEO Branding etc.? By the way the company that was acting as the intermediate for my new doaminis is an absolute pain. They didn't perform the transfer process quickly until I bombarded them with emails My new domain is still not working one week down the line. In the past I bought a domain cheap and it has been working within 24 hours directly.0 -
I am changing the name of my company and would like to know best practices for SEOmoz
YES you made a good point my main problem is I have been signed up under a different domain name then what my company will have so the domain name will be new I am changing my brand, name, logo, site with SEOmoz been kind enough to have given me credit for the link and other links what's the best way to go about trying to keep some of my previous rank (301?) I would appreciate any and all information. I am I apologize English is not my first language I am sorry about any miscommunication
Branding | | BlueprintMarketing0 -
Which domain name should i choose for a air ticket search engine?
Hi, i am deciding to buy a domain name for a air ticket search engine. i want to target australia first and then worldwide in the future. most of the names with my keywords "cheap flights" are already been registered. I have tried many combination but could not find a proper name. One question is does keywords rich domains (not exact) helps a lot? also i was thinking if i can an keyword rich domain i could easily get links with the desired anchor text links. would it be a lot harder to get a domain name e.g. flightscomparision.com while targeting the term "cheap flights" or "cheap fares". Also i was thinking if i get a domain with "A" at the beginning i will be listed on top of directories. below are a list of domains i am able to register. amcheapflights.com aucheapflights.com abroadflights.com flightscomparision.com any other suggestions? thanks ray
Branding | | usaccess6080