Site Names in Search Results

A site name is the name Google shows beside the favicon above each search result, identifying the site the page comes from. There is one per domain or subdomain, it applies to every page on that host, and Google generates it automatically. You can state a preference with structured data on your home page, but Google decides, and when it is not confident in the name you give it, it shows your domain instead.

What is a site name in Google Search?

It is the label above the URL in a result, separate from the title link below it. Google’s documentation draws the line directly: title links are specific to each page, “whereas the site name is for the entire site”.¹

Google introduced site names on 14 October 2022, on mobile results in English, French, Japanese and German.² They reached desktop in March 2023, and on 7 September 2023 Google completed the rollout to every language Google Search supports.³

How does Google choose a site name?

Automatically. Google’s system “takes into account content from a site’s home page and references to it that appear on the web”, and Google says it cannot change an automatically selected name by hand.¹ The home page sources it names are:

• WebSite structured data, which Google calls “most important” if you want to specify a preference
• og:site_name, the Open Graph property that names a site for social previews
• the <title> element of the home page
• heading elements and other text on the home page

The stated aim is “to best represent and describe the source of each result”.¹ So the name you declare is one input, weighed against how the rest of your home page and the wider web refer to you.

How do you set your site name with structured data?

Add a WebSite node to your home page with two required properties: name, and url set to the canonical home page.¹

<script type="application/ld+json">
{
  "@context": "https://schema.org",
  "@type": "WebSite",
  "name": "Schema Bean",
  "alternateName": ["SB", "Schema Bean Coffee"],
  "url": "https://www.example.com/"
}
</script>

alternateName is optional and takes one name or a list, in order of preference. Google’s suggestion is an acronym or a shorter name, and it says the system “strongly considers” the alternatives when it is not confident enough to use the preferred name.¹

The technical rules are few, and each one catches sites out:

• Home page only. Google reads the markup from the root of the domain or subdomain. https://example.com/de/index.html is not a home page for this purpose, and adding the node to every page does nothing extra.¹
• Domains and subdomains, never subdirectories. news.example.com can have its own site name; example.com/news cannot. www. and m. are generally treated as the root domain. A subdomain with no markup of its own may fall back to the domain’s name.¹
• One WebSite node. If your home page already outputs a WebSite node, add the properties to it rather than creating a second block.¹
• Duplicate home pages carry the same markup. Where HTTP and HTTPS, or www and non-www, versions of the home page both exist, Google asks for identical structured data on all of them, not only the canonical one.¹
• The home page must be crawlable. If Google cannot fetch it, it may not be able to generate a site name at all.¹

What makes a good site name?

Google’s guidance comes down to five points:¹

• Unique and accurate. It must reflect the site’s identity and follow Google’s Search content policies.
• Concise and commonly recognised. Google’s example is “Google” rather than “Google, Inc”. There is no length limit, but long names may be truncated on some devices.
• Not generic. A name like “Best Dentists In Iowa” is “unlikely to be selected by our system as a site name, unless that’s an extremely well-recognized brand name”.
• Consistent across the home page. The name in the structured data should match how the <title>, og:site_name and headings refer to the site.
• Backed by an alternative. Google “generally won’t use the same site name for two different sites that are global in nature”, and may decide a site is better known by an acronym. alternateName gives it somewhere to go.

The generic-name rule is the one that matters most for new sites. Google does not publish how it measures confidence, but its exception is recognition: a generic name can be selected when it is an “extremely well-recognized” brand, and the system weighs references to the site from elsewhere on the web.¹ A descriptive name on a young site has neither, and markup alone does not supply them.

Why is Google showing my domain instead of my site name?

Google’s documentation says that when its system “is less confident in a name you provided”, it may build a site name from other sources or “show a domain or subdomain name”.¹

Work through Google’s troubleshooting steps in order:

1. Check the markup. The name is your preferred name, the node has no structured data errors, and it sits on the home page of a domain or subdomain, not a subdirectory.
2. Check the other home page sources. The <title>, og:site_name and headings use the same name.
3. Check redirects. If the home page redirects, the site name reflects the redirect target, so Googlebot must be able to reach it.
4. Wait. Crawling can take several days to several weeks. Google points to the URL Inspection tool to request a recrawl of the home page.

If the preferred name still is not selected, Google offers three escalating options:¹

1. Add an alternateName, such as a shorter form or acronym.
2. Add your domain as the last alternateName, in all lowercase (example.com, not Example.com), which Google says it detects as a site name preference and “will strongly consider using” if your preferred name is not selected.
3. Use the lowercase domain as the name itself. Google says it will generally select it, and calls this a “last-resort workaround option”.

Options 2 and 3 change nothing for a site whose domain is already showing. Past that point Google’s documentation has no further step beyond posting in the Search Central Help Community.

Internal pages can also lag behind the home page. From July 2023 to June 2024 Google listed a known issue stopping new site names reaching internal pages; the issue is resolved, but the documentation still notes that internal pages need their own recrawl once the home page shows the new name.⁴

Where else does the site name affect what Google shows?

In the title link. Where a site name is set at domain level, Google “may omit the site name from the title link” if the title repeats it, since the name is already shown above the result.⁵ A brand suffix such as | Schema Bean on every <title> can therefore disappear from the displayed title without anything being wrong.

In AI Mode and AI Overviews on desktop, hovering over an inline link previews “the name of the website or title of the web page”, a feature Google announced on 6 May 2026.⁶ Google does not say whether that name comes from the same site name system, so treat a mismatch between the two as unexplained rather than as an error on your side.

Frequently asked questions

Does a site name affect rankings?

Google gives no indication that it does. It documents site names under search appearance, as a way to identify the source of a result, with no mention of ranking.¹ A domain shown in place of your name costs recognition in the results, not position.

Can I ask Google to change my site name?

Not directly. Google says it cannot manually change automatically selected site names.¹ The route is the markup and troubleshooting steps above, and Google points anyone still stuck to the Search Central Help Community.

Can different sections of my site have different site names?

Only if they are on different subdomains. blog.example.com can carry its own name; example.com/blog inherits the domain’s.¹

How long does a site name change take to appear?

Google gives no fixed time. Its estimate for recrawling is several days to several weeks, and internal pages may update after the home page.¹

Does Bing show site names?

Yes. Bing began showing a site name and favicon above its results in April 2023.⁷ It has not documented how it chooses the name: neither its Webmaster Guidelines nor its structured data help mention site names.⁸⁹ Consistent naming across the home page costs nothing on any engine, but the alternateName and fallback steps above are Google’s rules, and nothing published says whether Bing follows them.

Footnotes

1. Provide a site name to Google Search — Google Search Central ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹ ↩¹⁰ ↩¹¹ ↩¹² ↩¹³ ↩¹⁴ ↩¹⁵ ↩¹⁶ ↩¹⁷ ↩¹⁸

2. Introducing site names on Google Search — Google Search Central Blog, 14 October 2022. ↩

3. Site names on Google Search now available for all languages — Google Search Central Blog, 7 September 2023. ↩

4. Latest Google Search documentation updates — Google Search Central. The known issue was added on 28 July 2023 and removed in June 2024 (“Resolving the issue with site names and internal pages”). ↩

5. Influencing your title links in search results — Google Search Central ↩

6. How AI Mode and AI Overviews help you explore the web — Google, 6 May 2026. ↩

7. Bing Adds Site Name & Favicon To Search Result Snippets — Search Engine Roundtable, 25 April 2023. Reports users spotting the change, and a Bing executive posting about a design test. ↩

8. Webmaster Guidelines — Bing Webmaster Tools ↩

9. Marking Up Your Site with Structured Data — Bing Webmaster Tools ↩