Your brand SERP is what people see when they search your company name, and it increasingly includes what AI assistants say when asked “what is [company]?”. Managing it means making sure the first page is filled with accurate results you control or influence: your website with clear sitelinks, a Google Business Profile, a knowledge panel, your LinkedIn and other official profiles, genuine reviews and recent coverage. Prospects, candidates and partners check this page before they contact you, and AI systems build their description of you from the same sources.
Step 1: audit what people see
- Search your exact company name in a private window, in Google and Bing, from the country you target. Note every result on page one.
- Search common misspellings and your founders’ names.
- Ask ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini and Copilot “What is [company]?” and “Is [company] good for [service]?”. Note what they say and which sources they cite.
- Mark each result as accurate and controlled, accurate but not controlled, outdated, negative, or about a different company with a similar name.
Step 2: make your own website the clear first result
- A home page title that names the company and what it does.
- An About page that states the facts plainly: what you do, since when, where, who leads the company.
- Clear navigation, which Google uses to generate sitelinks.
- Organization schema with your official name, logo and sameAs links to every official profile.
Step 3: fill page one with profiles you control
| Profile | Why |
|---|---|
| Google Business Profile | Shows on the right for brand searches with location, reviews and hours |
| LinkedIn company page and founders’ profiles | Rank well for brand and people searches |
| Crunchbase, industry directories, review platforms | Independent confirmation of facts |
| YouTube, X, Instagram or other active channels | Only where you actually post; empty profiles do more harm than good |
Use the same name, description, logo and website link on all of them.
Step 4: the knowledge panel
If Google shows a knowledge panel for your company, you can claim it through Google’s verification process by signing in with an account linked to an official profile, then suggest corrections. Panels are generated from Google’s Knowledge Graph, which draws on many sources, so consistent facts across the web matter more than any single edit. See knowledge graphs.
Step 5: handle confusion with similar names
If searches for your name show another company, add distinguishing details everywhere: your full legal or trading name, location, industry and founding year. Use sameAs links in schema, and consider using your full name consistently, such as “Brand Name Consulting” rather than “Brand Name” alone. See entity resolution.
Step 6: deal with negative or outdated results
- Outdated facts on sites you do not control: ask the site owner to update them, politely, with the correct information.
- Negative reviews: reply factually, fix the issue, and keep collecting genuine reviews from other customers.
- Negative articles: respond through a statement or a clear page on your site if appropriate. Removal is possible only when content breaks the law or the platform’s policies.
- Personal information about founders, such as phone numbers or home addresses: Google offers a removal request process for certain personal information.
Avoid services that promise to “remove” negative results or flood search with fake pages; they tend to break Google’s spam policies and draw more attention to the problem.
Step 7: monitor
- Check the brand SERP and AI answers monthly, as part of your AI mention tracking.
- Set alerts for your company name in news and social monitoring tools.
- Track branded search impressions in Search Console; growth shows increasing awareness.
Frequently asked questions
How long does it take to change a brand SERP?
New profiles and website changes can appear within weeks. Pushing down established results takes months of consistent activity.
Can we pay Google to change our brand results?
No. Ads can appear for your brand name, but organic results and knowledge panels cannot be bought.
What if AI assistants describe us wrongly?
Find the sources they cite, correct the facts at those sources and on your own site, and report specific wrong answers through the assistants’ feedback options. See hallucination and grounding.
Sources
- Google Search Help, “Claim your knowledge panel”
- Google Search Central, “Sitelinks” and “Organization structured data”
- Google Search Help, “Remove select personally identifiable info from Google Search”