←back to thread

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: 0.284s | 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. GoToRO ◴[11 Sep 25 09:53 UTC] No.45209676[source]▶
Google took all their rules from years ago, and broke every single one of them. This was one of the rules: you can't advertize for keywords that include brands that are not yours. Now I was surprised that they will happily take the money, no matter what.

Also, ads must be cleary distinguished from the website content... not anymore Ads should not trick the user to click them (animating them so they expand over the content as the use tries to interact with it)... not anymore.

Basically, they are doing every single thing that the spammy websites were doing, 20 years ago. That also means that there is no more space to grow in the ads market.