Google's new algorithm

18-02-2005, 23:22

Has anyone else heard of problems with sites (especially shop sites that use dynamic pages) no longer being listed in Google?

My site has virtually *vanished* from Google's listings, the only pages that come up now are the static ones, the rest, even though they show up in Yahoo etc are nowhere to be seen.

This is very worrying because not appearing in the most popular search engine is going to make business even worse than it is at the moment...

downquark1 · 18-02-2005, 23:23

works for me when i type "affordable leather"

PS: Don't actually do this unless accompanied by an adult

Bex · 18-02-2005, 23:28

my sis noticed something similar a couple of days a go, she typed something in google which normally gives certain sites but none of them came up

downquark1 · 18-02-2005, 23:32

Make sure you have your google setting to unfiltered for your site to appear.

Gareth · 18-02-2005, 23:41

A colleague at work told me about this today... apparently it's played havoc with his wife's website - [plug] the Blueberry Patch [/plug]

AndrewJ · 18-02-2005, 23:42

ahh that kinda site I assumed it was more errmm family friendly oriented and not like hmmm

SMHarman · 19-02-2005, 00:37

Quote:

Originally Posted by Graham

Has anyone else heard of problems with sites (especially shop sites that use dynamic pages) no longer being listed in Google?

My site has virtually *vanished* from Google's listings, the only pages that come up now are the static ones, the rest, even though they show up in Yahoo etc are nowhere to be seen.

This is very worrying because not appearing in the most popular search engine is going to make business even worse than it is at the moment...

Does your cart have the ability to create a static set of pages for the benefit of search engines?

Richard M · 19-02-2005, 01:20

I guess you've never heard of the "Google Dance" then?
Don't panic, all will be back to normal soon...

http://dance.efactory.de/

19-02-2005, 01:59

Quote:

Originally Posted by downquark1

works for me when i type "affordable leather"

[Warning, this message may contain references to adult topics!]

Yes, but if you type in a search for a more specific item eg "ball gag" it will only (eventually, on about the 5th page) come up with with a reference in my price list, but not the page which you can find by going to the relevant category on my site.
__________________

Quote:

Originally Posted by downquark1

Make sure you have your google setting to unfiltered for your site to appear.

Yes the setting is for unfiltered results, because it comes up with other people's products on their sites.

Richard M · 19-02-2005, 02:00

You can't expect to come highly ranked when there are so many adult sites out there...

19-02-2005, 02:04

Quote:

Originally Posted by SMHarman

Does your cart have the ability to create a static set of pages for the benefit of search engines?

Yes, if you visit the site you'll see there's a Search Engine Optimiser (not one that tries to rig page rankings!) that produces meaningful page titles.

I had a problem just over a week ago when my hosting service upgraded to a new version of Zeus Server and the re-write script that does the page titles was not being activated which caused all the category and item pages to come up "404 - Not Found" but that was (seemingly) fixed since that error doesn't happen any more.

I was wondering if that could have caused Google to stop indexing the pages, but it should have found them again by now, especially since I've re-submitted the URL to Google.
__________________

Quote:

Originally Posted by Richard M

I guess you've never heard of the "Google Dance" then?

This isn't just a change in ranking position, this is the dynamic pages of my site *not* being found *at all*.
__________________

Quote:

Originally Posted by Richard M

You can't expect to come (no pun intended

) highly ranked when there are so many adult sites out there...

As I said, it's not being not highly ranked, it's those pages not even being indexed so people can't even visit them

Richard M · 19-02-2005, 02:09

Quote:

Originally Posted by Graham

This isn't just a change in ranking position, this is the dynamic pages of my site *not* being found *at all*.

Were those pages there before?
(And I mean the exact same URLs)

19-02-2005, 02:10

Quote:

Originally Posted by Richard M

Quote:

Originally Posted by Graham

This isn't just a change in ranking position, this is the dynamic pages of my site *not* being found *at all*.

Were those pages there before?
(And I mean the exact same URLs)

Yes, and if you search on eg Yahoo, they come up.

Richard M · 19-02-2005, 02:17

Wait for a week and if they're still missing then let me know so I can do some digging.

20-02-2005, 03:07

Quote:

Originally Posted by Richard M

Wait for a week and if they're still missing then let me know so I can do some digging.

Well it seems to have found my site again and, thank the gods the links are coming up again now, but it was *extremely* worrying...!

Interestingly apparently one thing the latest version is doing is scanning dynamic pages, but because of the way the cart works, each scan comes up with a different reference, meaning that it looks like you're trying to scam multiple hits and thus get penalised! (This wasn't what happened to me when they vanished, because my links were *nowhere* even when I went right to the bottom of the list)

The fix is to modify robots.txt to deny access to the /cgi-bin folder (or similar) so it can't follow links into there.