Others at the Catufind forums have reported seeing seach results pages indexed in Google as well. While you say these shouldn't be indexed, the fact that they are isn't a bad thing - if only because they provide additional links to category and listings pages. Either way, it seems your data confirms the observations I made in the thread opener - that phpLynx, for reasons not fully understood, is better (more fully) indexed than eSyndicat.
You might not like it but your customer might just have a different view from you? You don't have categories but you do have 'CONTENT' relative to this keyword. These indexed 'Results' EXIST, or have existed at some time, it would be impossible to index a non existant word or phrase. Why shouldn't they be indexed? Because other directory scripts haven't achieved this in the past? I used the word 'Cynical' YMC. As for research, I'm the invisible moderator on the phpLynx forum who watches over the watchers, so I'm fully versed with who you are thanks, and I never said you were "lumped with the other" if you check my words you'll see to I posted quite the contrary. This thread is about minstrel feeling there are unexpected benefits to the phpLynx script, I tend to agree with him but it appears your not quite so convinced, and your entitled to your opinion.
Directories by their nature are usually large sites with hundreds of pages. Artificially inflating the number of pages indexed does not appear to be ethical and in the scheme of things not something that I would be excited to hear as a listing buyer. That's somewhat like the magazine telling it's advertisers that they have a print run of 2 million and not bothering to mention that only 1 million copies are actually sold. I am disappointed that Kevin and Gary felt they had to do make the script function this way as a way to claim it indexes better. The word Ottawa appears on this page but that certainly doesn't mean that this page has content about that city.
What on earth are you talking about? What "artificial" inflation of pages? I don't think you understand how spiders operate - they follow links. If you're seeing search results from a directory indexed, it means the spider followed links to find them. The potential value of those indexed pages is, as I said above, that they link back to other pages in the directory - in essence, it's functioning like a sitemap. What is wrong with that? If anything, it's an advantage. If it bothers you, filter out those results using robots.txt or .htaccess. I really don't see why any sentient being would find a problem with this either way. And again, it does indicate a difference - a potentially favorable one - with how spiders (or at least Googlebots) react to phpLynx in comparison with eSyndicat or phpLD. What utter balderdash. For starters, Kevin and Gary aren't making the claim - I am. And it's not even a claim at this point - it's simply an observation which apparently your own data supports. Appears on what page? If you mean this thread, the page actually does have content about the city, since it's about directories attached to Psychlinks.ca which has everything to do with Ottawa - see my sig. Hint: Google "long tail".
Minstrel asked me to prove that the links in question do not appear on my site. Since any claim I would make to that affect would be met with disbelief (after all it is usually impossible to prove a negative), I challenged the Lynx folks to find an actual human-clickable link to one of the search results pages I had earlier posted. I made this challenge via PM and agreed to retract my previous comments should they find a link that I was not aware of. They did not find a link to the page I provided. (It was the search for the word "meals".) They simply highlighted the word "meals" on the search results page (which does indeed appear in one of my listings) and told me that was proof of the page existing. I have never questioned that Lynx returned correct search results. Nor did I say the page indexed was not functional. What I said was the page in question does not have a clickable link going to it on my site. My question still remains, why is it a good thing that the search engines are indexing a page that has no human-accessible direct and clickable link on the site? Is the script creating these pages based on a random selection of words/nouns from the descriptions? The word "meal" does not appear in the keywords submitted by the site listed under that search, nor is there a category with that name. There are many factors in evaluating the value of a website. Many directory owners and submitters will use the number of indexed pages as a factor in that valuation. It would seem that artificially inflating the number of indexed pages also serves to artificially inflate the value of a directory. While both Jamie and Minstrel may disagree that this is not ethical, I will continue to stand by my original opinion.
The link doesn't have to be "human-clickable" - it only has to be spider-followable. As to the "ethics" issue, you're entitled to your opinion (sic), of course, but it sounds like nonsense to me.
Uhm, isn't a link that's not "human-clickable" but is spider-followable a perfect example of cloaking?
Frankly, I don't know what the hell you're talking about and increasingly I don't think you know either. I also don't know what this has to do with my original point. You've already verified that your phpLynx installation has more of its pages indexed than your eSyndicat installation. So exactly what the hell are you on about beyond that fact?
In the example you gave YMC it's NOT a link, so in answer to cloaking I'd say categorically not at all, it is NOT a link and therefore it is not cloaked in any way shape or form.. It's a bit of text that got indexed, It's pretty simple when you think of it YMC. I hope that's cleared that up for you. I think minstrel was meaning that when posting although I'm sure he'll pick me up on that if I'm wrong. Missed this from YMC: No, its not selecting 'random' words, we use a method that extends searching and indexing capability from not only links and categories to inlcude being able to pick up keywords of your description. My question to you would be why would you think it's a bad thing to give a customer's site description more index capability? Doesn't that give them more exposure which equals more value for money for their listings?
The example I gave is a link, according to Google. The URL is indexed by Google. It is one of the results from searching with site:____. If Google can find it and visitors to my site cannot, then it is cloaked.
Stop making allegations you can't support and that are highly inflamitory if not libelous. Your visitors CAN find the search phrase and a simple site search would have shown this, although I suspect you already knew this. I just this second went to www.petsiteguides.com and typed in the search keyword 'meal' I found that word in your result - Now please tell me where this is CLOAKED? I'd kindly ask you to now delete your allegation.
http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=66353: The additional indexed pages aren't a problem - but if they're achieved by a hidden link, that's potentially bad. Minstrel, do you have pages that are indexed that you can't find a link to, like YMC?
The site command on Google returns webpages, not keywords. Again, I never said that someone typing in the keyword "meals" will not get the correct results. All your last post does is confirm what I said in post #46 of this thread - that the search function works. Fact: Google's results from the site: command shows indexed pages. Fact: It includes a search results page from my site as an indexed page. Fact: You have still not shown where there is a physical link to that page justifying why Google is seeing it as an actual page. Fact: There are other search result pages that Google has indexed that do indeed have a clickable link on my site (Bb for one). The example I have given does not. When it suits you, it's an indexed page. When it doesn't it's simply a keyword it picked up. I am done wasting my time with you and this conversation. And again with the threatening PMs? I guess when the comments were flying at other scripts and their owners that was OK, but when someone criticizes yours' you threaten legal action. Gee, Jamie, that's so beneath you and what this forum is supposed to be about. Again, I'm done. I'll even let you have the last word if you wish. So be it. The thread will remain, as is, and the others can make up their mind as to how they see a search results page being indexed by the search engines when there is no visible link to it.
I'm glad your done as you haven't made a blind bit of sense with your questions, but then again why would you, you clearly now little or nothing about search results. If I sell 'meals' and I pay for a link in a directory I expect to get found not just for my link title but at least some or all of my product description. With our search you do its as simple as that, hence the result http://www.petsiteguides.com/?action=search&link_name=meals. (It even has a PR2!) for the record when you commented that "search results are cloaked", which by the way is a load of nonsense, you were warned of the consequences of legal action. As a supposed writer? I would have thought you would have know you have to back up statements with facts not fiction. Either way its a good think your done as you were struggling with your clear lack of knowledge. Others can indeed make their own minds up on the efficacy of results which when all said and done if they are indexed legitimately which they are then it has to be a good thing. You can't blame phpLynx for the way Google index now can you?
I am surprised as a law student that you do not read things more carefully. In none of my previous posts did I insinuate or clearly state that (Lynx) "search results are cloaked". In both messages where I used the word "cloaked" I neither mentioned Lynx nor made an accusation. I simply stated that a page the search engines can see that humans can not is "cloaked". I did not make a slanderous, libelous, or even defamatory remark about you, Lynx or anyone else. Even this supposed writer knows the difference; too bad the law student does not. So are you now saying that every noun appearing in every one of my listings, whether someone visiting the site has searched for it or not, has a page associated with it that Google can see that my site's visitors can not? This whole conversation could have been avoided if you had simply pointed out where on my site there is a visible link to that page. It's a simple question. And one you obviously do not want to answer. So you instead continue to throw insults and threats without answering the original question. I may be just a writer, but I sure as heck know when someone is trying to avoid answering a direct question by making a great deal of noise. And when they add threats and name-calling to that noise it only shows how desperate they truly are to avoid answering.
There are no hidden links. There is no cloaking. Not that I've seen. Look for yourself: http://www.google.com/search?q=site...&safe=off&rlz=1T4GGLJ_en___US261&start=0&sa=N Fact: I made an observation that my phpLynx pages were getting indexed at a rate greater than I had previously seen with either phpLD or eSyndicat. Fact: YMC confirmed this with her own phpLynx directory. Everything else YMC has said is in this thread is circular BS and bafflegab.
I have noticed that google is indexing search pages without having any link to those pages. I don't understand this behavior of the googlebot. as an example, an empty directory with just 16 pages has more than 1000 indexed pages (most are search pages) http://fr.enquira.com/. It uses esyndicat so the script has nothing to do with this.
Thanks for that information, mhamdi. It's possible that Google may be finding these search results pages/URLs in the cache folder.
quite an interesting observation minstrel, and ** im not a SEO artist, ** cant comment on "Powered by phpLD" tag, could very well be a possibility! but i doubt the script has anything to do with it, coz in the end googlebot is indexing the HTML and not the php part of things. that said hats off to the designer of the template. what is noteworthy here is it is quite interesting to see such an observation on a html 4.01 (w/ table) template, which does not use any <H> tags! .... what could have worked for you is the unique HTML structure (most use xHTML) and the niche, .... google does love niche! But i would like to see the result a month from now to make a final assessment. M.