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How to Change Your Site Name and Favicon in Google

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Google generates your site name automatically, and the way to state your preference is WebSite structured data on your home page; your favicon comes from the icon link on that same page, so you change both on your home page and then wait for Google to recrawl it. Neither is fully in your hands. Google can pick a different name, and it says a favicon "isn't guaranteed to appear in Google Search results, even if all guidelines are met."

Below is what Google reads, what to put on your home page, how to check it and why a change takes weeks, based on Google's guides to site names (last updated 10 December 2025) and favicons (last updated 28 August 2026), read on 8 October 2026.

What Google shows

Google's guide describes the site name as the label in a search result that tells you which website the page belongs to. It covers your whole site, unlike title links, the clickable headlines that belong to individual pages. The favicon is the small icon Google can show with your results.

Google added site names in stages. It announced on 14 October 2022: "Today, Search is introducing site names on mobile search results". Since 7 September 2023, Google says, site names have been available on mobile and desktop in every language that Google Search supports.

How Google chooses your site name

Google says its system chooses site names entirely automatically, weighing what your home page contains and how other pages across the web refer to your site. On your home page it considers WebSite structured data, the og:site_name tag, the <title> element, headings and other text. Of these, Google names one as the way to state a preference: "To indicate your site name preference, add WebSite structured data to your home page."

Nobody at Google sets names by hand. Google says it can't manually override a name its system has chosen, but you can offer alternatives, as the troubleshooting section below explains. Its naming rules decide whether your preferred name is likely to be used:

  • Unique and accurate. The name should reflect your site's identity and not mislead.

  • Concise and commonly recognized. Google's example is Google rather than Google, Inc, and some devices may cut long names short.

  • Not generic. Google gives Best Dentists In Iowa as a name its system is unlikely to pick, unless it's an extremely well-recognized brand.

  • Consistent. Use the same name in your structured data, your home page's title and its headings.

  • Available. Google's system usually won't give the same name to two different global sites, so have a fallback ready.

Google supports one site name per domain or subdomain and none per subdirectory, so a blog in a folder such as example.com/blog shares its main site's name; subdomain vs subfolder covers what else that choice changes.

What to put on your home page

Add a WebSite block to your home page; Google says the home page is the only place the markup has to go. It needs two properties, name and url (your canonical home page address), and can carry alternateName for one or more fallback names. A blog's version looks like this:

<script type="application/ld+json">
{
  "@context": "https://schema.org",
  "@type": "WebSite",
  "name": "Example Kitchen",
  "alternateName": ["EK", "example.com"],
  "url": "https://www.example.com/"
}
</script>

List the alternative names by priority; Google asks for your top choice first and the rest in order of preference. Ending the list with your domain in lowercase, as above, gives Google a plain fallback.

Three details catch blogs out:

  • Your SEO plugin may already output WebSite markup. If so, set the name there instead of pasting a second block, which Google asks you to avoid where you can. In Yoast SEO, for example, the fields are Website name and Alternate website name under Settings › Site basics, and Yoast says they "overwrite the default WordPress site name in the structured data code that Yoast SEO outputs" (Yoast: website name).

  • Every version of your home page needs it. If your home page also loads over HTTP or without www, Google asks that every one of those copies carry the same markup as the canonical page.

  • Google needs to be able to crawl your home page. If it's blocked, Google says it might be unable to produce a site name.

For the other markup a blog can use, see which structured data still matters for a blog.

What to use for your favicon

Add one link tag to the head of your home page. This is Google's example:

<link rel="icon" href="/path/to/favicon.ico">

Google also accepts shortcut icon, apple-touch-icon and apple-touch-icon-precomposed as the rel value, and it lets you serve the file from somewhere other than your own site, such as a content delivery network. The guidelines for the file:

  • Shape and size. Google's rule: square (aspect ratio 1:1) and no smaller than 8x8px. Google recommends going above 48x48px so the icon displays well in different places.

  • File format. Google's rule: BMP, GIF, ICO, PNG, JPEG, PPM or TIFF.

  • Crawling. Google's rule: neither can be blocked: Googlebot-Image has to reach the icon file, and Googlebot the home page.

  • One per hostname. Google's rule: www.example.com and code.example.com can each have one; a subdirectory uses its host's favicon.

  • Stable address. Google's rule: keep the icon at the same URL rather than moving it often.

  • Content. Google's rule: it should represent your brand; Google swaps inappropriate imagery for a default icon.

If you've read that favicons have to come in multiples of 48px, that rule is out of date. An archived copy of Google's page from September 2024 still says "Your favicon must be a multiple of 48px square" (archived page). Google's documentation log dates the current rule, a square of 8x8px or more with a higher-resolution recommendation, to 24 October 2024, a change made "To reflect the actual requirements for favicons" (Google: documentation updates).

SVG isn't on the current format list. Google's older page mentioned SVG, and its 28 August 2026 update says "Google Search's supported file formats haven't changed"; the update only spells them out on the page. If your site declares only an SVG icon, adding a PNG or ICO version keeps you within the list.

On WordPress, the built-in Site Icon feature handles this. Its documentation says Site Icon spares you from making a favicon.ico file yourself or editing your template file. Since version 6.5 the setting is in General Settings under Choose a Site icon, and WordPress asks for an image that is "square, having a height and width of at least 512 px", noting that "a .png is the recommended format" (WordPress: create a favicon). That size is well above Google's recommendation.

How to check it

  1. Read your home page's source. Search for "WebSite": you should find one block, carrying your preferred name. Then search for rel="icon" and open the file it points to; it should load in your browser.

  2. Validate the markup. Paste your home page address into the Schema Markup Validator to catch syntax errors. Google's own testing tool won't help here: its site names guide says the Rich Results Test has no support for site names.

  3. Confirm Google can reach both. In Google Search Console, inspect your home page with the URL Inspection tool. Google asks that the page be open to it, with no robots.txt rule, noindex directive or login wall in the way, and your robots.txt must not block the favicon file either.

  4. Ask for a recrawl. Google says you can use URL Inspection to request indexing of your home page.

  5. Look again later. Search for your blog's name after a few weeks and see which name and icon appear.

Why changes take time

Both guides give the same reason: how soon Google crawls a page again depends on how often its systems judge that the content needs refreshing, so the wait can run from several days up to several weeks. Your posts can also lag behind your home page. Once the home page shows the new name, Google says your internal pages need extra time while it revisits and reprocesses them.

Your title links can shift too. Google's guide to title links says that with a domain-level site name, Google "may omit the site name from the title link" when it would repeat the site name already shown in that result. SEO titles and meta descriptions covers how to write those titles.

If Google still shows a different name

Google's troubleshooting runs in this order:

  1. Check the basics. The WebSite name is your preferred one, the markup has no errors, the other text on your home page uses the same name, you aren't setting a name for a subdirectory, and any redirects work.

  2. Add an alternative name. Google says its system gives an alternative name strong consideration when it lacks confidence in your preferred one.

  3. Add your domain as an alternative name. Google only reads the domain or subdomain as a preference when it's written entirely in lowercase.

  4. Use your domain as the name itself. Google will generally select it, but recommends this only as a last resort.

Google's 28 July 2023 update explains why a name can be passed over: "This could happen if a name doesn't appear to be unique, concise, or commonly-recognized with a particular site." A favicon has no such fallback. If yours meets the guidelines and still doesn't show, Google's guide links a feedback form, though it says a submission won't necessarily lead to action on your individual case.

Your next step

Open your home page's source and look for two things: one WebSite block with the name you want, and a rel="icon" link to a square PNG or ICO file. Fix whichever is missing, request indexing of the home page, and check your results again in a few weeks. For the wider question of how your blog is doing in search, use how to check your website's SEO performance.