Danny Sullivan, Google’s Search Liaison, has weighed in on recent SEO advice suggesting that you should avoid mentioning the brand name of products in your reviews. Sullivan firmly disagreed with this advice, stating. “you shouldn’t be afraid to mention the brand name of something you are reviewing.”

Contrasting Opinions on SEO Strategy

An SEO expert recently claimed that mentioning the brand name could hurt your rankings, while Google asserts that avoiding the brand name will actually 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.” He added, “I sound like a conspiracy theorist here, but I’ve audited dozens of sites already, feel free to disagree though.”

Sullivan’s Response

Sullivan responded, “I’ll disagree.” He elaborated, “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 continued, “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 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.”

Takeaway

When writing product reviews, it’s important to mention the brand name as it aligns with what readers expect and helps Google’s systems identify and reward helpful content. Ignoring the brand name in hopes of better rankings could actually be detrimental to your SEO efforts.