Google removing the domain name from search results

[donreeco]

https://yoast.com/changing-urls-in-...etter&utm_campaign=newsletter-april-17th-2015

Any thoughts?

 

[martin-s]

Yep - setup your website structured data

 

[RobMRobM is verified member.]

Get ready to stuff keywords into your structure. Yay google.

 

[donreeco]

On a reg fee domain name

 

[martin-s]

On a reg fee domain name

Interesting point - another move towards brand away from domain

 

[spiderspider]

Get ready to stuff keywords into your structure. Yay google.

If you read the Google blog post https://developers.google.com/structured-data/site-name , it says:

First, the website names you supply in your markup should meet the following criteria:

Be reasonbly similar to your domain name
Be a natural name used to refer to the site, such as "Google," rather than "Google, Inc."
Be unique to your site—not used by some other site
Not be a misleading description of your site

So owning somereallyrubbishdomainnamethatnoonecaresabout.co.uk and trying to call it 'Car Insurance' won't work.

 

[Lucky Luke]

So why have an expensive .co.uk or .com when you can have a .crappy tld?

 

[bonusmedia]

How can this possibly work? As a searcher, I want to know what site I'm going to, not what the site is 'called'. I definitely want to know whether I'm going to Widgets.com or Widgets.xyz, for example. Otherwise widgets.xyz is now equivalent to the .com in results.

I suspect it will be tested and then dropped. If not, it's a disaster for all of us who've invested in premium domains, a bonanza for webspammers and it will cause massive confusion and wasted time for searchers.

 

[donreeco]

How can this possibly work? As a searcher, I want to know what site I'm going to, not what the site is 'called'. I definitely want to know whether I'm going to Widgets.com or Widgets.xyz, for example. Otherwise widgets.xyz is now equivalent to the .com in results.

I suspect it will be tested and then dropped. If not, it's a disaster for all of us who've invested in premium domains, a bonanza for webspammers and it will cause massive confusion and wasted time for searchers.

My thoughts exactly.

 

[jasman]

This looks like a further step in the same vein as removing the EMD benefit, and adding breadcrumbs, i.e. to diminish the importance of domains and URLs. Perhaps Google perceives domain names themselves to be a major competitor, as users can easily remember a website with a memorable domain and go to it direct, whereas if Google serves up a dumbed down page of results keeping their users in the dark as to the URLs and domains, people would more often need to keep coming back to Google to refind the website.

Now is a special time because the floodgates have been opened for hundreds of new tlds, so being clear about which domain is which is all the more imperative. Rolling out a plan to remove the domain from results is exactly the opposite of what should be happening and is not in the public interest. Apart from the tremendous potential for confusion and passing off, it also poses a security risk - you want to know where the link is going to, partly so you can avoid certain websites. The least they should do is make the dumbed down version an option for logged in users, not force it onto everyone.

 

[martin-s]

It *may* be just a mobile change - for where screen real estate is at a premium.

 

[noonoo1]

Its happening already in the UK, I can see on my mobile that the domain names are missing on some results.

 

[scottmccloud]

It's like an open invite to phishing sites.

 

[sijugk]

This looks like a further step in the same vein as removing the EMD benefit, and adding breadcrumbs, i.e. to diminish the importance of domains and URLs. Perhaps Google perceives domain names themselves to be a major competitor, as users can easily remember a website with a memorable domain and go to it direct, whereas if Google serves up a dumbed down page of results keeping their users in the dark as to the URLs and domains, people would more often need to keep coming back to Google to refind the website. Now is a special time because the floodgates have been opened for hundreds of new tlds, so being clear about which domain is which is all the more imperative. Rolling out a plan to remove the domain from results is exactly the opposite of what should be happeniing and is not in the public interest. Apart from the tremendous potential for confusion and passing off, it also poses a security risk - you want to know where the link is going to, partly so you can avoid certain websites. The least they should do is make the dumbed down version an option for logged in users, not force it onto everyone.

Google is showing domain in Phone search but not showing entire URL.If Google doesn't show the domain name, it will not help searchers because they won't have a clue about which website they are going to visit.