There have been quite a few reports about Google removing the domain name from search results in some Google searches. I performed one important search from my iPhone, and here’s what I currently see:
I did some research about this major change, and I found more information in a detailed blog post on Google’s Webmaster Central blog. According to the blog post, Google is “updating the algorithms that display URLs in the search results to better reflect the names of websites, using the real-world name of the site instead of the domain name, and the URL structure of the sites in a breadcrumbs-like format.”
Based on what I’ve seen, it appears that I am not seeing the fully rolled out results, unless Google still prefers to refer to my website as www.domaininvesting.com. The second result for the “domain investing” search I performed is an article found on Forbes.com. As you can see from the above screenshot, Google is showing that result as “Forbes” rather than Forbes.com.
I understand why this might be helpful for well-known brands such as Forbes. Most people recognize the Forbes branding without needing to know it is Forbes.com. The same probably goes for Wikipedia, Google, Target, and countless other well known brands.
I have two issues that deal with trust that are caused by this change: