docprego
Joined: Mar 19, 2006
# Posts: 71
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Posted: 2006-Mar-19 21:29
It took Google quite a while to show up and start indexing my site. After about a month I had about 340 pages indexed, which for my site was terrific representing almost all of the important pages.
Suddenly and I am not sure exactly when, within the last couple of weeks my 340 pages indexed has dropped to only 1, the home page.
This search; site:mysite.com
Gives the following results; "Results 1 - 1 of about 4 from mysite.com"
The 4 results all point to the same page (my home page) but with slight variations, here they are:
mysite.com
www.mysite.com
"https://www.mysite.com"
www.mysite.com/index.php
I do not fully understand the implications of the Big Daddy update, is this a temporary problem being caused by this update? How can someone possbily find out what is wrong?
Any help or ideas would be most appreciated!
[ Message was edited by: docprego 03/19/2006 01:48 pm ]
[ Message was edited by: docprego 03/20/2006 03:53 pm ]
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SportsGuy
Staff
Joined: Aug 30, 2002
# Posts: 3603
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Posted: 2006-Mar-19 22:39
Could be Google, but do check the following:
If you type in http://domain.com, does it go directly there, or redirect you to http://www.domain.com? It should redirect - otherwise Google might see both versions and decide you're offering duplicate content. (Using a 301 redirect will solve the problem here.)
Use one of the HTML code validators online and check your code.
Make sure the headers are returning 301 codes for non-www and 200 codes for www - meaning they're fine (use WebBug for that).
If the site is new, this could simply be a shuffling of results and it may return shortly.
We've recently had a run on 301 redirect questions, so if you have any, I'll politely suggest getting cozy with the forum's Search functionality.  You'll find exactly what you need on that topic, including code.
[ Message was edited by: JimBot 03/22/2006 07:14 am ... Reason: Tidied Example URLs. ]
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docprego
Joined: Mar 19, 2006
# Posts: 71
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Posted: 2006-Mar-19 22:50
I typed in my URL with no WWW or HTTP and hit enter. It went to the url as I entered it, in other words mysite.com loaded up.
But nothing has changed my site was always like this. Why would they decide it is duplicate all of a sudden?
Could this 301 redirect be the issue? I don't fully understand it's relationship.
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SportsGuy
Staff
Joined: Aug 30, 2002
# Posts: 3603
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Posted: 2006-Mar-20 02:13
Using the 301 redirect could SOLVE the issue.
When G looks at your site, it doesn't really see that the www version of the domain and the non-www version are actually the same thing.
It treats them as separate entities - which happen to haveidentical info - and since it can read the domain, it hits you with a penalty for duplicating content, since you are obviously producing both versions.
Trouble is, though I think they're close to by-passing this little snafu, it still haunts us.
I'm not saying this IS the cause of the problem, but it IS something yu wnat to get cleaned up.
In short, the 301 is your friend who'll protect you from Google's "near-sightedness".
Since the site was always this way, I'm guessing this isn't really the cause of anything - though time may have run out and maybe they did tag you - either way, it's a housekeeping issue you might want to address.
If it solves the issue, you're gold, if not, at least it's done and you can cross this off the worry-list.
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dudibob
Joined: Oct 13, 2005
# Posts: 1472
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Posted: 2006-Mar-20 11:17
the 301 sounds like a good thing to do, also wasn't this an error with Bigdaddy? or has this been fixed now?
Docprego, if I'm wrong, ignore this post 
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SportsGuy
Staff
Joined: Aug 30, 2002
# Posts: 3603
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Posted: 2006-Mar-20 13:06
Coul dhave been a BD error, but I though that error had been found & fixed prior to the original post in thie thread. As with so many times in my life, though, I could be incorrect...
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docprego
Joined: Mar 19, 2006
# Posts: 71
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Posted: 2006-Mar-20 14:26
I hope it is just a BD error, but how would I know? I have searched for site:mysite.com on various different data centers that I have seen posted on this and other forums. Some come up with only the few links that I have been asking about, however there are some datacenters that for the same search return over 200 linked pages. Could this be an indication that I am OK and just need to wait for all the data centers to synchronize?
This is very frustrating not knowing what is going on. Any additional insight is welcome.
Also I added the 301, now when I type my url without the www it automatically loads up the www version.
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SportsGuy
Staff
Joined: Aug 30, 2002
# Posts: 3603
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Posted: 2006-Mar-20 15:00
Also I added the 301, now when I type my url without the www it automatically loads up the www version
perfect
if you're checking G for links to your site, remember they only show a fraction of what actually exists.
keep an eye on this, though, if it's indexed pages you're referring to when you mention "linked pages".
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dudibob
Joined: Oct 13, 2005
# Posts: 1472
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Posted: 2006-Mar-20 15:09
also, just a quick note, check, double check and check again that you've set up a 301 re-direct and not a 302 re-direct
301 = SE's don't index this ever coz it's never coming back
302 = SE's please index this coz it is coming back
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docprego
Joined: Mar 19, 2006
# Posts: 71
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Posted: 2006-Mar-20 23:09
I used this code in my .htaccess file:
Options +FollowSymLinks
RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^mysite.com [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.mysite.com/$1 [L,R=301]
I just checked and the version without the www is returning a 301 code, the version with is returning a 200 code.
Still seeing the same indexed pages when I do a search on Google for site:mysite.com or site:www.mysite.com
I wish this would be solved already, it has killed my site.
Finally I should mention that the google bot has visited my site daily throughout this entire mess, it is this bot:
Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; Googlebot/2.1; +http://www.google.com/bot.html)
It seems to be indexing a lot of links, in fact I counted and there are 60 it visited today.
Thanks.
[ Message was edited by: docprego 03/20/2006 03:36 pm ]
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SportsGuy
Staff
Joined: Aug 30, 2002
# Posts: 3603
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Posted: 2006-Mar-20 23:56
The psider being on the site and when the actual index updates are totally different beasts - it sometimes takes a couple of months for Google to update it's index with the latest results - often, you've changed something again during that time, too...
Don't sweat seeing the bot every day and still seeing the old pages in the index. In fact, offer the robot a beer...or I guess, in this case, it'd be a quart of oil...
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docprego
Joined: Mar 19, 2006
# Posts: 71
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Posted: 2006-Mar-21 00:12
Sportsguy, thanks but I do not see any pages but my main in the index. My other 300+ pages have vanished.
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g1smd
Staff
Joined: Jul 28, 2002
# Posts: 10465
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Posted: 2006-Mar-21 21:30
Many people are reporting having only their root index page properly listed, and for all other pages that show in the index, that they are all old versions, are all marked as Supplemental Results, and all have a cache that is from 6 months to 2 years old. If there is no "old" version for Google to fall back on, then I guess that you could just "disappear".
This is a bug that Google is aware of, and (as of a few days ago) thinks that they have fixed. Check Matt Cutts blog for information.
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docprego
Joined: Mar 19, 2006
# Posts: 71
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Posted: 2006-Mar-21 23:18
Well my site went online in December and I would say was indexed by Google in about January so I would guess I do not have a cache that is 6 months to 2 years old to fall back on.
However I still have only my root index page indexed in Google, so nothing is fixed in my case.
I'll go read Matt Cutt's blog now.
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docprego
Joined: Mar 19, 2006
# Posts: 71
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Posted: 2006-Mar-22 02:19
Update:
Google has dropped the indexed page of my site that did not have the www in front of it. I have to take this as progress, at least it is a change. It happened faster than I expected, I put the 301 redirect in place 2 days ago.
When are my pages going to reappear though, this is so frustrating!
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docprego
Joined: Mar 19, 2006
# Posts: 71
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Posted: 2006-Mar-22 03:50
I spoke too soon, the page without the www reappeared when searching for site:mysite.com
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g1smd
Staff
Joined: Jul 28, 2002
# Posts: 10465
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Posted: 2006-Mar-22 11:44
It will take Google a few months to drop the non-www pages (except that any already marked as "Supplemental Results" will hang around for years - this is a known "bug" with Google, although they do not accept it as such).
The important thing for you to watch is to see that all your pages do become fully listed as the www version, and that all show a title and description in a site:www.domain.com search.
Note too, how far you get before you see the Repeat search with omitted results error message. If it is only a few pages, then Google thinks they are all too similar (you MUST have a unique title and meta description on every page of the site).
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dealsway
Joined: Mar 09, 2006
# Posts: 28
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Posted: 2006-Mar-22 13:32
we are seeing that our site indexed pages are started increasing.
G was de-indexing the pages of website last week, so we went from 45K to 200 and from yesterday we are seeing that its going up. today it is 500+.
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docprego
Joined: Mar 19, 2006
# Posts: 71
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Posted: 2006-Mar-22 14:29
Thanks all for your replies.
None of my pages have returned.
All my pages did show a unique title and description, I was very careful about this.
As far as the "Repeat search with omitted results error message" I get the following on the results page when I search for either mysite.com or www.mysite.com;
"In order to show you the most relevant results, we have omitted some entries very similar to the 1 already displayed.
If you like, you can repeat the search with the omitted results included."
For the www.mysite.com search this appears underneath my single indexed page and that is actually a secure page, https:www.mysite.com. If I click this text then 2 more indexed pages appear for the www.mysite.com search, they are:
www.mysite.com and www.mysite.com/index.php
That seems wrong right there, why would an https page be my primary indexed page on Google?
If I do the mysite.com search on google then my primary indexed page that comes up is mysite.com. Clicking on the omitted results text brings up 3 more indexed pages as follows:
"https://www.mysite.com"
www.mysite.com
www.mysite.com/index.php
Thank you for your continued assistance.
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g1smd
Staff
Joined: Jul 28, 2002
# Posts: 10465
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Posted: 2006-Mar-22 15:09
Run Xenu LinkSleuth over your site (both as domain.com and then again as www.domain.com).
Maybe there is a HTML coding error that stops the bots getting off the index page.
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