Checked couple of my sites and found out some pages where not included anymore. Some missing pages have PR6 for almost a year. Does this mean Google removed them from the index? Also a new site that Google indexed a couple of days ago, is now gone. Now I believe Compar and Owlcroft, Google is BROKEN!!!
I used another site to check if the pages are still indexed, and they showed up. Must be problems in the DCs?
I wasn't gonna say anything ...... but now, I might as well say it! I BELIEVE that Google is working on a new algo that is going to filter out certain sites from the SERPs (as well as from the index perhaps). I have been tracking the number of indexed pages for a couple of my sites and the "site:" command for both of these sites are now showing approx. half the number of previously indexed pages. BUT, as of now my ranking has actually gone up for a couple of the keywords I was tracking .... from #5 to #2 and from #18 to #12, as som of the top 20 results in both cases have either dropped in the SERPs or have been completely filtered out. I don't think these changes are quite finished as yet and there might be more to come in the next few days. Oh, and one other thing ..... They seem to be doing some testing "up there" as it seems to go back to the original SERPs .... then switches back to the new rankings and so on. I'll try to figure out on what basis the pages are being filteres out .... although I could only speculate, as there could be dozens of things that Google could be looking at. But, I can assure you, that most of your sites will see some major movement in SERPs in the next few days. Best of luck!
Are you doing the "site:domain.com" query in search box in Firefox 1.0PR? If so this will add additional variables to the google request URL and the number of pages will be significantly less that usual. Some of my sites show half the actual indexed pages when doing the "site:" query in FF 1.0PR
This has been going on for some time. It isn't just in the last few days. On 16th Sept, one of my sites, lost 1600 pages from the index, and these were not duplicate content pages. It has been slowly recovering since, and has gained back 300 of those pages. Every now and again, if you check with the site: command during the day, it reverts back to the full count, then goes down again. Prior to 16th Sept, that same site had shown the higher number most of the time, but occasionally, would show a much lower number, but not the number it eventually dropped down to.
Last week our site dropped ± 9950 places for certain keywords, and this week it is back @ #16. Other pages have dropped off completely, and some have increased in ranking. We don't have duplicate content.
I noticed around the 16th too. I'm also noticing this: the site command is only showing a different count in one datacenter - 64.233.171.104. The others are showing either the normal count or an updated count.
I really doubt if this is Firefox 1.0PR related. I got less than half my site pages yesterday using FF, but today they are al back, IMO indicating that it is a datacenter related problem, but it may be a harbinger of something new.
You don't believe me? Try this, a search from the FF 1PR search box. Now try this a search with the "client=firefox-a" variable removed. See any difference? I'm seeing a 15700 difference.
Something funny with your browser since when I do that search from my Firefox I get this as the search http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=mozclient&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&q=site:feedsfarm.com and show 27,600 pages indexed, the same number as in your second search
You will do because the "client=firefox-a" variable is included in those links. Same result for me in IE too.