Institute of Fundraising suffers listing problems at Google
Howard Lake | 26 March 2004 | News
The Institute of Fundraising’s change of name and current change of Web site address is yielding some confusing results on the Google search engine.
A search for the “Institute of Fundraising” on Google yields the top result under its former Web address of www.icfm.org.uk. The Institute reappears in fourth place but with its current Web address of go.gomango.co.uk/institute_of_fundraising, which a number of its special interest groups have been publicising as its address.
The true address of institute-of-fundraising.org.uk finally appears on the third page of results at number 29.
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The Institute of Fundraising’s Web presence was hindered when it changed its name from the Institute of Charity Fundraising Managers and stopped using its icfm.org.uk Web address. This is a challenge faced by any organisation that changes its name. But for the Institute to allow its Web address to be replaced by that of a sub-directory on its Web design agency’s site is a mistake that will harm its rankings on Google and other search engines.
As more sites link to the gomango.co.uk address, the Institute will generate a rash of broken links when it returns to its full domain name of institute-of-fundraising.org.uk. In addition, it will almost certainly suffer further in its rankings on Google.
The lesson from the Institute is that if you must change your domain name, make sure your old domain name doesn’t still appear as the top search result, and don’t then change your domain name again.
About Howard Lake
Howard Lake is consultant editor of UK Fundraising. He founded the site in 1994 and successfully sold it in 2022. As director of Giving X Ltd he is exploring growing giving on a massive scale.
He is the founder of Fundraising Camp and co-founder of GoodJobs.