My site is quite new but its main page has been listed on Google for quite a while now (since early June). Lately one article appeared in the SERPS, disappeared, and now has reappeared again. However, the rest of the site is not coming up in the listings at all. Is it of significance that these are the pages I have linked to e.g. in forums - perhaps Google is not navigating the site correctly, although GoogleBot seems to be visiting the pages that I'd like to be indexed according to the visitor logs. Can anyone help with this?
You should validate your HTML. If you have errors in your HTML, the search bots may not be able to parse the links correctly. Bots are usually less forgiving than web browsers. I had a look, and you seem to have one web page embedded within another. You cannot have <html> or <head> tags more than once in any web page. It's as if you've just converted from frames to tables... Get your sitemap spidered - my link should help you (assuming that its HTML is correct). Cryo.
Thanks for the link - hopefully this might help get through the block. I thought of the other things you said prior to starting this thread, but I had largely discounted it primarily because on my visitor logs GoogleBot is actually getting to the other pages - it particularly likes looking through the threads in my vB forum for some reason. The pages are just not reaching the index. Also, the pages are indexed on Yahoo and MSN (though not ranked high, unsurprisingly since I have few links). However, very few people are finding my site through these search engines. My site was frames-based originally, and then I converted it to the PHP form it is in now, largely for benefit of search. Hasn't helped so far! Do you think it is worth trying to write a Google Sitemap?
Possibly. However, if your logs say that Googlebot is visiting your pages, then perhaps you just need to wait a bit longer. Google Sitemaps can give you some fantastic diagnostics though, so I would recommend you setup an account soley for that. If your pages start getting indexed quicker because of that, then that's a bonus. Actually, having just looked, Google has indexed 8 pages from your site. So, things are already looking up for you already. Cryo.
Google always has hiccups. I have a site where google one day indexed 1-2 pages, and another day just indexed everything. But now, everthing is quite stable. Here's some advice: 1. Don't update your layout/design/site appearance/navigation/structure too frequently. Keep it consistent. Keep it the same. 2. Don't link to bad neighbourhood. Yes, outbound link counts. 3. Keep building links. Get links from social bookmarking site. Get links from signature. And don't stop.
how does a google sitemap work?if u guys have a link with documentation wud be gr888...thks....cheers
Cryogenius: When I click the link in your post, I still get just 2 pages coming up - the homepage and datamining.php - I have never had as many as 8 come up .
Erk! I'm sure I saw 8 links before. Them 2 you mentioned, plus a couple more articles and then 4 more in the forum. I'm confused too. Cryo.
Aargh it's done it again. It's deleted the Data Mining article and put in my Opponent Profiling one in its place. It has done this once before, and I get hardly any referrals to this one but quite a few to the data mining one when it is up. What's wrong with putting them both up, Google?
I still feel that the errors in your HTML are holding you back, especially the second set of <html>, <head> and <body> tags (mentioned in post #2). I'm guessing that (for example) sitemap.php is doing a include('sitemap.html');? You've got to remove the top 8 lines (and last 2 line) from that and other .html files. Everything in the box below must go. <html> <head> <title>Hand History Exchange - Site Map</title> <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="hhemain.css"/> <div style="text-align:center"> </div> </head> <body> </body> </html> HTML: Cryo.