Mount McKinley Becomes Mt. Denali On Google Maps; Bing Stays With Old Name

Restored to its native name by US President Barack Obama, the transformation has yet to fully complete on the major search engines.

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Denali in 1996, by Danny Sullivan

Denali in 1996, by Danny Sullivan

North America’s highest mountain has been restored to its native name of Denali, as announced by US President Barack Obama. The peak had been known as Mount McKinley since 1917.

The move has sparked some political debate, especially among Ohioan politicians who view it as a slight against Ohio native William McKinley, who was the 25th president of the United States. Alaskan politicians had been pushing for the change.

I was curious how quickly our major search engines may have changed the name on their mapping services. As it turns out, Google’s already switched over:

Google Maps Denali

On Google Maps, the peak is listed as “Mt Denali.” A search for the official name of “Denali” won’t find it, but “Mount Denali,” “Mt Denali” and even “Mount McKinley” will.

On Bing Maps, it’s still the old name that appears:

Bing Denali

A search for “Mt Denali” will find the mountain but shows the Mount McKinley name. “Mount McKinley” also finds it. “Denali” brings up the town of Denali.

Both Google and Bing also provide direct answer information for places along the right side of their search results pages. The name change has yet to come to these areas. For a search on “Mount McKinley,” both still list the peak with that name rather than Denali:

google mt mckinley

bing mt mckinley

Searching for “Denali” brings up information about the mountain but still with the Mount McKinley name:

denali google

bing denali

These direct answers for both search engines draw heavily from Wikipedia. Its page about the mountain has been changed to reflect the restored name of Denali.

And via Gary Price, at InfoDocket, here’s the actual order by the US Secretary of the Interior explaining the name change and why it’s happening.

UPDATE: After this article was published, Google changed Maps so that a search for Denali returns the correct result. Additionally, the mountain is now labeled with its official name of Denali, rather than Mt. Denali.

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Opinions expressed in this article are those of the guest author and not necessarily Search Engine Land. Staff authors are listed here.


About the author

Danny Sullivan
Contributor
Danny Sullivan was a journalist and analyst who covered the digital and search marketing space from 1996 through 2017. He was also a cofounder of Third Door Media, which publishes Search Engine Land and MarTech, and produces the SMX: Search Marketing Expo and MarTech events. He retired from journalism and Third Door Media in June 2017. You can learn more about him on his personal site & blog He can also be found on Facebook and Twitter.

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