How do I get my company back to #1 when I search my brand name?

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Since the latest big Google update, about a month ago, my site is no longer at the top of search results when I search "Brand Name"

The results usually look something like this:
  1. My brand Facebook page
  2. My brand Yelp page
  3. My site here
  4. Reddit thread about my brand
  5. Quora thread about my brand
  6. My brand Trustpilot page
  7. My brand Twitter page
  8. My brand Instagram page
  9. My brand linkedin page
  10. My brand Medium.com page
So, I have the first page on lock (and the second page too, with stuff like crunchbase, youtube, glassdoor, pisseconsumer, etc). However, since the recent rounds of updates, my actual site is never #1 in the SERPs when you search for my brand name. It bounces between #2 and #4.

I should also mention that my site got hit super hard during these updates. Lost 80% of google orangic traffic.

Since then I've improved on EEAT signals, submitted huge disavow list, and have continued to add content as usual. No movement yet. Any ideas?
 
Everyone is generally saying it'll be the next big update before you see the boost from fixing issues on the last one.

But what I did for a new site I launched was just do a really small, very clickbaity digital PR campaign that had a bunch of local news outlets link to my site with the brandname.

That got a new site with DR3 to rank no1 for brand name despite it being a name based on a meme/old saying etc.

So something like that link wise probably worth exploring.
 
Thanks Steve. I should've mentioned that mine is a DR50 and a 12 year old domain.

Probably good for smallish sites, but I don't think a PR campaign would work (I've already done dozens in the past) for me.
 
Do you get any direct traffic or is there any searches for your brand name?

Your brand might not be an entity in Google's Schema Key-Value Pair. Therefore, even though you branded your site, Google might not recognize that it is a brand, hence why it ranks UGC sites w/ brand in content higher than the actual brand's website.

If you are a "real" business with type in traffic and branded queries and you've done a lot of PR campaigns, do you qualify for a Wikipedia profile page? Do you have investors and can be listed on Crunchbase? Both Wikipedia and Crunchbase are used as inputs for Google's Schema KVP. IMO once you have a schema for your brand, it will be treated as so and rank above those UGC sites.

If not, Google doesn't think your site is a real brand.
 
BakerStreet said:
Do you get any direct traffic or is there any searches for your brand name?

Your brand might not be an entity in Google's Schema Key-Value Pair. Therefore, even though you branded your site, Google might not recognize that it is a brand, hence why it ranks UGC sites w/ brand in content higher than the actual brand's website.

If you are a "real" business with type in traffic and branded queries and you've done a lot of PR campaigns, do you qualify for a Wikipedia profile page? Do you have investors and can be listed on Crunchbase? Both Wikipedia and Crunchbase are used as inputs for Google's Schema KVP. IMO once you have a schema for your brand, it will be treated as so and rank above those UGC sites.

If not, Google doesn't think your site is a real brand.
Click to expand...
Yes. I get lots of direct traffic and searches for my brand name. I'd say 100+ per day. (well, now it's getting lower since we're no longer #1)

Wikipedia deletes the profile everytime I've tried to create one in the past.

No investors - just myself and a few others. Never took outside money. But we do have a Crunchbase page.
 
Dropped even further today. Down to #7 or #8 for our brand name. Any other insights?
 
A piece of the puzzle that could be missing: Are you using sameAs schema on your website officially associating it with the social media profiles?
 
Ryuzaki said:
A piece of the puzzle that could be missing: Are you using sameAs schema on your website officially associating it with the social media profiles?
Click to expand...
Yes I am. Always have had it.

sameAs schema with facebook,twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, and youtube listed.

So it's now been 7 weeks after I first noticed I'm no longer #1. And now I'm usually hovering around #5-#6 for my brand name.

Usually, it's like this:
  1. Reddit threads about brand
  2. My Facebook page
  3. My yelp page
  4. My linkedin page
  5. My trustpilot page
  6. My site
  7. My Crunchbase page
  8. My twitter page
Rest of top 15 are all brand related (quora, Instagram , pinterest, Instagram, etc.)
 
Gonna bump this again.

For the past 4-5 months now, Reddit has been #1 for my brand name. (Both [brand name] and [brandname]) I've crawled back up to #2 for my site (brandname.com).

I've been building links to my main page from good sources, but I still can't beat a reddit thread (that I made myself) titled "Is [Brand Name] Legit?"

(and no - I can't delete the thread)

Any suggestions other than "keep building links"? I'm a DR52 in ahrefs, so it's not like I don't have any (been link building for 10+ years with this domain)

Thanks!
 
You sure you don't have a page load error or time out problem somewhere?

Brands with actual links don't struggle with this long haul like this.
You disavow any links? DR 52 is high. It come from obvious spam in some way?
 
I did spend a month or so disavowing links in the summer. Never really saw results from it.

No page load errors. Or time outs.

No obvious spam or anything like that. I was careful building links throughout the years.
 
One thing to consider is this isn't business as usual. Google has dropped all pretenses of caring about quality and are only padding their wallets, because they're in the same boat we're all in. The new AI reality isn't just rapidly approaching, it's here. There's just no forerunner yet and Google stands to lose their long-lasting pole position.

In the past, Google had rules that were at least overtly understood and the game was one that could actually be played and won. Sure, they would then change the rules (algorithm) but at least the game was fair. The goal moved, but we could chase it.

One example of what I'm talking about that directly relates to what you're dealing with, and is a possible explanation, is that the game is rigged. Two things happened at once:
  1. Google wanted API access to Reddit's content for LLM training data.
  2. Reddit was gearing up to have an IPO and stood to make a lot of money.
Reddit played hard ball and restricted Google from indexing their content for a short while, along with other search engines and crawlers (I think except Bing if I recall). I presume the real reason is Google didn't want to pay the money Reddit wanted for that level of API access.

Google at this time was already severely declining in search quality, as evidenced by nearly everyone tagging the word "reddit" to the ends of their search queries. So a deal was struck that gave both of them plausible deniability, with the public being none the wiser. Take note that this is my conjecture with no hard proof.

Reddit suddenly pretended Google was honoring their crawling and indexing requests thus allowing Reddit back into Google's index, and Google pushed an algorithm update pretending that they were serving the people (since everyone was adding "reddit" to their queries) by putting Reddit at the top of nearly every SERP.

What really happened, I presume? Google gave Reddit a boatload of extra organic traffic to boost their numbers for their IPO, thereby paying less money for access to their API. Reddit went public and made a ton of money. And now that deal is slowly expiring and Reddit is taking a hit to their stock valuations, but who cares, they both made out like bandits into the sunset.

Reddit Stock Prices

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Reddit Organic Google Traffic

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So ultimately, what I'm saying is, you're very possibly facing this problem because the game is rigged in Reddit's favor right now, but that deal is looking like it's going to slowly expire over time (plausible deniability), and your problem will be a self-correcting one, one I wouldn't plow a bunch of money or time into.

The technique in these situations in the Reputations Management SEO World... the dummies would try to outrank the result they didn't want to appear on the first page. They'd spend money to boost 10 other pages. The smart method is to REPLACE the page on the domain you want out of the SERPs with a page that reflects positively on your brand. So whatever thread is ranking... if you don't like it, create a better one and build links to it. You'll have a recency bias / freshness advantage and can sculpt the anchor text profile perfectly, etc.

This is the problem I think you're facing, and the solution I propose. If Reddit is going to rank above you for the next 12-24 months or however long, and there's nothing you can do about it, you can at least manipulate what page on Reddit is the one ranking above you.
 
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