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Google Doesn't Rank My Site for My Own Brand Name

45 points hypeaccount | 1 comments | 10 Sep 25 18:15 UTC | HN request time: 0.277s | source

I run a small business in Canada. Oddly, if you search my brand name, my own site doesn’t show up at all on the first page. Instead, Facebook, Instagram, and random sites that link to me outrank me.

I’ve submitted my sitemap to GSC, checked indexing, and built branded backlinks—but Google still ignores my homepage. It’s bad because people looking for me are funneled into other platforms where I lose control of the user journey.

Has anyone else experienced this? Is this Google punishing small/new sites, or do I need to approach brand SEO differently? At this point it feels like Google wants me to buy ads just to show up for my own name.

1. j45 ◴[10 Sep 25 21:29 UTC] No.45204079[source]▶
Not sure if you have a Google Business Profile.

Also, make sure your Google Maps profile is well done, it can be as or more important than the Google Business Profile as it helps shape how you'd like traffic to become interactions with you.

The more useful information is available from your website in structured form, the less it likely will pull structured information from the social links pointing to you. I forget what this is called but I believe it's semantic metadata settings or something, can try to look it up and reply here again.