# Institute of Fundraising suffers listing problems at Google

- Link: https://fundraising.co.uk/2004/03/26/institute-fundraising-suffers-listing-problems-google/
- Published: 2004-03-26T00:00:00+00:00
- Author: Howard Lake

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.

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.

## Advertisement

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.

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