If Google shows an old site name above an article result, first record that label separately from the clickable headline. A site name identifies the source website, while a title link describes an individual page. This distinction helps you locate the setting to inspect.
Write down both visible labels
Imagine a fictional website now called Tern Field Notes. Its rainfall article has the correct headline, but the label above it still says Tern Outdoor Club. Keep the result URL, observed label, query and check date together.
| Item to review | Intended value in this example |
|---|---|
| Site name | Tern Field Notes |
| Article title | Rainfall Notebook Checklist |
| Home page | https://example.com/ |
The article headline and the website identity need their own checks. Google’s title-link documentation describes how page titles and other page signals contribute to a result headline. See the title-link guidance.
Compare the title field with the site name
Open the Meta Tag Generator. Enter Rainfall Notebook Checklist | Tern Field Notes in the page-title field, leave the optional social-tags checkbox off and select Generate Meta Tags. Locate this line in the output.
<title>Rainfall Notebook Checklist | Tern Field Notes</title>Change the article wording to Rainfall Recording Sheet | Tern Field Notes and generate again. The title line changes with your input. This tool has no site-name structured-data control, so continue the site-name review on the home page. For an article headline that needs editing, the title-tag guide covers that writing task.
Inspect the home page WebSite record
Open the site’s root home page and view its source. Search its structured data for WebSite, including nodes inside an @graph. Google uses home-page WebSite data to understand a preferred site name. The required properties are name and the canonical home-page url. See Google’s site-name documentation.
For Tern Field Notes, the relevant values in that node would look like this.
{
"@context": "https://schema.org",
"@type": "WebSite",
"name": "Tern Field Notes",
"url": "https://example.com/"
}Schema.org defines WebSite as a collection of related pages, which is the entity this record describes. See the WebSite definition.
Use the setting or template that owns the existing node to correct an outdated name. Keep its other properties and references together. If a CMS already outputs the node, update that integration rather than adding another independent copy.
Recheck the public home page
- Reload the public home page source and confirm that the existing node carries the intended name and home-page URL.
- Compare the name with the visible branding and other home-page references to the site.
- Confirm that the home page is publicly accessible and crawlable.
- Keep the observed source values with your dated result record.
Google selects site names automatically, so record later results as observations. Revisit a specific mismatch in the home-page output when it appears, and keep the article’s accurate title in place during that review.