Google Says Don't Avoid Mentioning Brand Names In Your Review Content

Danny Sullivan, Google’s Search Liaison, responded to some new SEO ‘advice’ floating around the SEOverse that suggests you should not add the brand name of the products you are reviewing in your review content. Sullivan disagreed with this advice and said, “you shouldn’t be afraid to mention the brand name of something you are reviewing.”

In short, an SEO says don’t mention the brand because it will hurt your rankings. Google says, if you don’t mention the brand, then it will hurt your rankings.

Taleb Kabbara wrote on X, “Jake, trust me it’s the word “new balance”. Don’t expect to rise to page 1 with 3rd party branded content.” “I sound like a conspiracy theorist here, but I’ve audited dozens of sites already, feel free to disagree though,” he added.

In which Sullivan from Google replied, “I’ll disagree.” “No, you shouldn’t be afraid to mention the brand name of something you are reviewing. It’s literally what readers would expect you to do, and our systems are trying to reward things that are helpful to readers,” he added.

Sullivan then went off saying, “How would you write a review of something and not mention what it is?” “This is something anyone can easily debunk themselves by simply searching on the results. Do this exact query, I see two different small review blogs in the top listings. Jake’s own page is around page two — which isn’t page one — but it’s also far from our systems somehow not finding the page relevant,” he added.

Here are those posts:

Jake, trust me it’s the word “new balance”. Don’t expect to rise to page 1 with 3rd party branded content.

On a related note, your site tanked because of those keywords.

I sound like a conspiracy theorist here, but i’ve audited dozens of sites already, feel free to disagree…

— Taleb Kabbara (@TalebKabbara) June 25, 2024

I’ll disagree. No, you shouldn’t be afraid to mention the brand name of something you are reviewing. It’s literally what readers would expect you to do, and our systems are trying to reward things that are helpful to readers. How would you write a review of something and not…

— Google SearchLiaison (@searchliaison) June 25, 2024

Yeah, don’t do that.

— Google SearchLiaison (@searchliaison) June 25, 2024

As I said in my earlier reply: “This is something anyone can easily debunk themselves by simply searching on the results.”

Top result for this query isn’t a big brand. The YouTube videos aren’t from big brands. They’re from Jake. And ideally, I would agree that if our systems… pic.twitter.com/hKhGZxLuOH

— Google SearchLiaison (@searchliaison) June 25, 2024

Forum discussion at X.