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Are brand mentions a ranking factor for Google?

By Dave Colgate, Head of enterprise SEO

Vertical Leap

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March 30, 2022 | 6 min read

SEOs have speculated that brand mentions are a ranking factor in Google’s search algorithm for many years. Of course, Google doesn’t reveal the inner workings of its algorithm, but nonetheless search marketers are constantly striving to crack the code to organic search success, says Dave Colgate, head of SEO at Vertical Leap.

Vertical Leap on how brands can make the most of Google's brand mentions function.

Vertical Leap on whether Google factors brand mentions into SEO

Google’s John Mueller was asked about the prospect of brand mentions being a ranking factor during the latest SEO Office Hours session. A speaker asked: “In some articles, I see people are speaking about unlinked brand mentions. I want to know your opinion in this case – do you think it’s also important for the algorithm, unlinked brand mentions?”

Initially, Mueller questioned what the speaker was referring to when he spoke about brand mentions, and the speaker replied: “It’s like another website and article speaking about my website brand, but it doesn’t link to me.”

Even with this clarification, Mueller was careful not to make any assumptions about the hypothetical situation the speaker referred to. And, while he acknowledged mentions may hold value for users in limited scenarios, he warned against assuming they could be an “SEO factor.”

Here’s his answer in full: “I don’t know. I think that’s kind of tricky because we don’t really know what the context is there. I mean, I don’t think it’s a bad thing, just for users, because if they can find your website through that mention then that’s always a good thing.

“But I wouldn’t assume that there’s like some... I don’t know... SEO factor that is trying to figure out where someone is mentioning your website name.”

You can watch the SEO Office Hours session by clicking on the video embed below, and the question related to brand mentions starts at 12 minutes in.

Brand mentions would be problematic as a ranking factor

This isn’t the first time John Mueller has poured cold water on the brand mentions theory either. During a previous SEO Office Hours session, held in December 2021, he was asked (at 44:10 minutes): “Do brand mentions without a link help with SEO rankings?”

To this, Mueller provided a more resolute answer: “From my point of view, I don’t think we use those at all for things like PageRank or understanding the link graph of a website. And just a plain mention is sometimes kind of tricky to figure out anyway.”

As with his most recent answer, Mueller acknowledges the potential value mentions can have for the user in specific situations, in terms of helping them to discover new brands or websites – but that’s where it ends.

More importantly, Mueller detailed why the prospect of using brand mentions as a ranking factor would be problematic.

First, he said that understanding the subjective nature of individual brand mentions would be “really hard.”

“Understanding the almost subjective context of the mention is really hard. Is it a positive mention or a negative mention? Is it a sarcastic positive mention or a sarcastic negative mention? How can you even tell?”

He also raised the issue of spammy sites, many of which simply spin or scrape content, potentially duplicating brand mentions.

“All of that, I think, makes it really hard to say we can just use that as the same as a link ... It’s just, I think, too confusing to use as a clear signal.”

This sounds like a more definitive answer from John Mueller.

Where did the idea of brand mentions come from?

Roger Montti published a good write-up for Search Engine Journal on the source of confusion in the SEO community over brand mentions. To sum up, he explains that a patent published by Google in 2014 entitled ‘Ranking Search Results’ that references “implied links” is responsible for the brand mentions confusion.

Or, more specifically, the misinterpretation of what “implied links” refers to in that patent.

Among several pages, the phrase “implied links” appears twice in one paragraph, but the wording of the first reference clearly caused a lot of confusion: “An implied link is a reference to a target resource...”

Some of the biggest names in the industry picked up on this line and interpreted it as meaning brand mentions (with no links) are a ranking signal – when, in fact, the line specifies that an “implied link” in the patent refers to a branded search, which is described as “reference” queries throughout the patent.

So implied links are brand searches, not brand mentions.

At the end of the day, brand mentions play an important part in your overall brand strategy when it comes to getting eyeballs on your company name, and if there does happen to be some hidden value for SEO then that’s a bonus.

If you need help with your SEO, you can check out our range of SEO services here.

Google SEO SEO Rankings

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