Hi everyone, this is Neo.

Rebranding is something most overseas independent site operators go through at some stage of growth. Whether you’re a B2B factory trying to make your brand look more international or a B2C seller expanding into new categories, domain changes and rebrands come with serious SEO risk.

We usually assume that as long as we set up 301 redirects and swap out the logo and copy, Google will quickly “get to know” our new brand.

But a recent oddity might change how you think about that: a UK company rebranded back in 2015, and to this day Google is stubbornly showing their 10-year-old name in the search results!

Is this a Google bug, or did the company’s technical SEO just not go far enough? Today we’re digging into this fun case and what it means for how you run your independent site.

---

The Spooky Case: Rebranded for Nearly a Decade, but Google Won’t Acknowledge It

Here’s what happened. Someone recently asked Google Search Advocate John Mueller on Bluesky:

“Hey John! I’m curious about the persistence of Google’s ‘site name.’ A UK company called Treatwell still shows up in search results under its old name ‘Wahanda’ — and that rebrand happened back in 2015! Is there some special ‘legacy’ signal that can override the current SiteName structured data for this long?”

In short, the company has fully updated its entire website to the new Treatwell brand, but Google just won’t look at it — it insists on displaying the old brand name Wahanda in the title tags of search results.

Google’s Official Response: It Is Weird — and There’s a Workaround

Faced with this decade-long “legacy problem,” Google’s John Mueller was a bit puzzled himself. He admitted he doesn’t know the exact cause right now — it may be a rare bug where some part of Google’s index got stuck and never refreshed.

Still, he offered a practical interim fix:

“This is indeed a bit odd — I’ll flag it to the technical team. To be honest, in cases like this what usually works is: submitting your domain as an alternate site name. Though it would be nicer if that wasn’t necessary.”

He also suggested that site owners facing similar issues check out Google’s developer documentation on what to do if your preferred site name isn’t chosen.

Neo’s take:

A lot of independent site owners overlook structured data when they build their sites. Google actually identifies your “site name” through a specific snippet of markup in your code — usually a JSON-LD WebSite object.

The “workaround” Mueller suggests is to add an alternateName field to your structured data and put your domain in it (treatwell.com, for example). That gives Google a forceful signal: “If you can’t recognize my new name, at least show my domain — just stop showing that ancient old name.”

Uncovering the Culprit: a Bug, or Just Sloppy SEO?

Since Google floated the bug theory, is the company’s own site really spotless?

Professionals went digging into Treatwell’s site and found things weren’t so clean after all. The visible pages had no traces of the old brand, and the old domain was correctly 301-redirecting to the new one — but the devil is in the details:

1. Dirty corners in the footer: hidden links at the bottom of the site still contained referral codes carrying the old brand name.
2. Junk in the sitemap: the sitemap they submitted to Google still included links pointing to old-brand 404 error pages!

We can’t say with 100% certainty that these hidden “digital scraps” are what caused Google to keep showing the old name, but this is unquestionably sloppy SEO practice.

Neo’s take:

This should be a wake-up call for every independent site owner and operator: rebranding is not just swapping a logo and setting up a 301 redirect.

More often than not, your site is full of hundreds of “ghosts” of the old brand: image alt tags, links buried in PDF manuals, an outdated sitemap, even old variable names hiding in JavaScript files. Google’s crawlers are extremely sharp. If they keep scraping old-brand mentions deep inside your site, they get confused — and fall back on the “conservative” choice: keep showing the old name they consider safest.

Running a full-site deep crawl with an SEO crawler tool (Screaming Frog or Ahrefs, for example) on a regular basis to clean up dead links and outdated info should be a mandatory part of keeping your site healthy.

---

Summary

A case like Treatwell — Google “holding a grudge” for nearly 10 years — is extremely rare, but it’s like a crack in the wall that lets us glimpse just how complex Google’s massive index system is. For independent site owners, the main takeaways are:

1. Take structured data seriously: make sure your site properly configures WebSite structured data and clearly tells Google your name and alternateName.
2. Make the migration thorough: if you’re changing your domain or brand, do an exhaustive sweep. Clean up every trace of the old brand — especially broken links in the sitemap and dead corners in the footer.
3. Keep your sitemap clean: never include 404 pages or redirect pages in your sitemap. It should only contain quality pages with a 200 status code that you want Google to index.

If you’re planning a rebrand of your own independent site, don’t forget to get these technical SEO details right — don’t let Google’s “memory” stay stuck in the past.