Site name structured data

Hello @4ndyc

Thanks for reaching out about the Site Name structured data.

By default, the Yoast SEO plugin will use the name of your WordPress site as the website name, as indicated in WordPress > Settings > General. If you want a different name to be displayed in the search results, you can change the site name in the field WordPress > Yoast SEO > Settings > General > Site Basics > Website name. This will overwrite the default WordPress site name in the structured data code that Yoast SEO outputs for the?name?of the?WebSite.

In addition to controlling the site name, you can also control the output for the?alternateName?structured data by filling in the “Alternate website name” field. Like?name, this is a property of the?WebSite?structured data. Here, you can enter a (potentially shorter) alternate name for your website. You can read more?here.

I ran your URL through Google’s rich result test tool, and I assure you everything is set up correctly. See screenshot. The Yoast SEO plugin outputs the necessary schema required by Google.?

In a reply from Google on its Google Search Central Community, they say we “don’t appear to have any structured data on it that indicates a preferred site name”.

Can you share the URL of that post?

Hi, thanks for your reply. I thought that was the case with the structured data code that Yoast SEO outputs, so it’s good to have it confirmed that we have it set up correctly. The thread is here – https://support.google.com/webmasters/thread/217127361?hl=en&msgid=220533753 – however, the comment from Google has now been removed (although I have it on email) and placed on another post. There is a similar post that mentions Yoast using “webpage” > part of > “website” instead of explicitly defining the website as per Google’s guidance and another that says the markup can be seen but that Google “might not be showing it and instead a URL because we don’t have enough confidence in the name”. This apparently happens “if Search isn’t able to confidently determine a site name based on your home page’s metadata and other signals”. It’s disappointing if this is the case as the site name meets the content guidelines and is implemented correctly with structured data.

Thanks for sharing the thread; I’ve skimmed through it, but there isn’t enough helpful information. According to Google’s documentation at https://developers.google.com/search/docs/appearance/site-names, they use a number of sources from a site’s home page to automatically determine site names. For your site, you have set it up correctly as they have required:

• WebSite?structured data
  • name = “name”:”Topline Pools and Wellness”
  • url = “url”:”https://www.topline.uk.net/”
  • alternateName = “alternateName”:”Topline Pools”

• Content in <title> elements = <title>Swimming Pool &amp; Wellness Design &amp; Build | Topline Pools &amp; Wellness</title>
• og:site_name = <meta property="og:site_name" content="Topline Pools &amp; Wellness" />

They also mentioned that they are always working to make site names as accurate as possible. So it’s a work in progress and not yet perfect.

Have you added your site to Google Search Console? You could request indexing so Google can recrawl your homepage to see if that would make a difference.

• This reply was modified 1 year, 4 months ago by Maybellyne.

This thread was marked resolved due to a lack of activity, but you’re always welcome to re-open the topic. Please read this post before opening a new request.