Google: The Site Name Mobile Markup Is A Hint; Don't Try To Fake It

Last week, Google introduced a way for you to add markup to your site so that you can communicate to Google what the name of your site is. This site name markup would be displayed in the mobile results in place of the URL.

Some SEOs feel this is way too easy to fake and manipulate. Here are some tweets with those concerns:

If I'm reading the new "Real Names" concept by Goog correctly, this is going to be great for phishers and hackers.

— Cygnus SEO (@CygnusSEO) April 17, 2015

@bobrains @CygnusSEO sorry, couldn't hear you. Something about hedge funds? ;-)

— john andrews (@johnandrews) April 17, 2015

@johnandrews @CygnusSEO Three Cheers for SPAM!!!

— bob rains (@bobrains) April 17, 2015

Truth is, the previous version of breadcrumb URLs, even without the markup, was exploited and Google removed it.

In any event, Google said they are using this as a hint and if the hint doesn't match reality, they won't use the hint. Here is how Gary Illyes responded on Twitter:

@rustybrick @jenstar @CygnusSEO like rel-canonical, the site name markup is a hint. If everything tells us it's incorrect, we won't use it

— Gary Illyes (@methode) April 17, 2015

Forum discussion at Twitter.