The Site That Ranks for the Old Business Name

Six months after the new sign

The new sign went up in the autumn. The vans were lettered, the invoices reprinted and the new logo placed at the top of every page of the website.

Six months later, a search for the new name brings up the website with the old name in the blue headline. The map listing beside it uses the old name too.

Customers arrive asking whether the business has changed hands. A few still find an old phone number in a directory nobody told.

None of this means the rename failed. It means Google, and everyone else, is still reading what the old name left behind.

Where Google finds the old name

• Your own page titles, often set separately from the headings people see.
• Alt text, file names and the footer, which nobody rereads.
• Your Google My Business listing, if nobody edited it.
• Directories and review sites that copied the old details years ago.
• Other websites that mention or link to you by the old name.
• People searching for it, because the old name is what they remember.

The third is the one customers see first. The listing's name often appears in the map results above the website itself, so an unedited listing undoes much of the work done on the site.

The site itself, page by page

Start with a search on Google: site: followed by your domain, then the old name in quotation marks. Every page it lists still contained the old name when Google last looked.

Then go through the site itself. Check every page title and description, not only the home page's, along with headings, the logo's alt text, the footer and the contact page.

Look for the old name in places that are easy to forget: downloadable price lists and warranty sheets, image file names, the email address on the contact page, and business details marked up for search engines.

Change them all in the same week. A site that uses both names reads like two businesses, to people and to Google.

If the domain changed too

A new name often brings a new domain. Every old address should then point, with a permanent 301 redirect, to the matching page on the new site.

Sending everything to the new home page is the common shortcut. Google tends to treat that as old pages that simply vanished, and visitors who followed a link to a particular page land somewhere else.

Keep the old domain registered for years. Links, bookmarks, printed cards and the sides of old vans will keep sending people to it long after the rename.

Once both domains are verified in Search Console, its Change of Address tool tells Google about the move directly.

Listings and profiles

Edit the name on your Google My Business listing first, since that is what appears in the map results. Name changes can be reviewed before they show, so allow a little time.

Then work through Bing Places, Apple Maps Connect, your Facebook page and every directory, association and supplier's dealer list you can find.

Keep a list of each one with its login, for the next time anything about the business changes.

Mention the old name, plainly

People keep searching for the old name for a long time, out of habit or from an old invoice.

A plain line in the site's footer and on its about page, saying the business was formerly known by the old name, tells them they are in the right place.

It also gives Google an honest connection between the two names. That line is enough; repeating the old name in titles keeps the problem alive.

A worked example

A transmission shop in an industrial park changed its name after years of being confused with a towing company across town whose name differed by one word.

The new name went on the sign, the invoices and the website's logo and headings. The developer redirected the old domain, page by page, to the new one.

Four months later, the shop's own search result still carried the old name, and so did its map listing. Callers still asked whether they had reached the towing company.

The cause was two things nobody had opened. Every page title was set in a search plugin, separately from the headings, and the Google listing had never been edited.

The owner and the developer had each assumed the other would do it. The titles were rewritten that afternoon, and the listing the same week.

A line on the about page now gives the old name, alongside the same address and the same technicians.

The results caught up over the following weeks. Two directories never replied to requests and still show the old name.

What takes time regardless

Google revisits a busy home page often and a page four clicks deep rarely, so some old titles linger for weeks after they are fixed. Fetch as Google, in Search Console, requests a fresh look at key pages.

Directories copy each other, so a name fixed in one can return from another a month later. Other websites that mention you may never update at all.

Customers take longest of all. The line giving the old name will be useful for a year or more.

Links that still use the old name

Ask the few sites that matter most, such as a supplier's dealer list or an association's member directory, to update their mention. Most will if the request is short and gives the exact wording.

Leave the rest. With redirects in place, a link that uses the old name still brings people to the right business.

The counter-case

A minor change, such as dropping a word or adding Ltd, barely registers. Google usually connects the two quickly, and a line giving the old name may not be needed.

A business that is legally required to stop using its old name, for instance after leaving a franchise, should check with its lawyer before mentioning it anywhere.

For any real rename, though, change everything you control in the same week, redirect the old addresses and give the rest a few months.

The week of the rename

1. Search your site for the old name.
2. Rewrite every page title, not just headings.
3. Redirect each old address to its match.
4. Edit your Google listing the same week.
5. List every directory and profile you hold.
6. Add one line mentioning the old name.
7. Keep the old domain registered for years.

Step two is the one most renames miss. The title is what Google shows in its results, and on many sites it sits in a field nobody sees while editing the page.

Telling which of the links pointing at you matter is covered in PageRank disappears from the toolbar.

Frequently asked questions

West Coast Media Solutions Inc. provides web design, web development, hosting, digital marketing, and business consulting to organisations across Canada, drawing on more than twenty-five years in the field.