Watch your cache dates!!!!

Google seems to be having some kind of problem keeping cached pages fresh.

I have noticed this for some time now and have participated several threads where others are noticing this too.

The experiment page that I have been documenting daily in this forum, has been "forgotten" 4 times within the last year! The longest time I have documented was a period last summer from June 22nd to August 20th.

During that time the page dropped from position #25 to NOT FOUND in Google.

Here are the results once Google updated the cache...
8/20/2004 - Position # NOT FOUND
8/21/2004 - Position #48
8/22/2004 - Position #22
(see Complete Report)

The most recent period was from April 20th to May 3rd.

Everytime this has happened, the pages position eventually suffered.

Each and every time this has happened Google only responded when I opened the source of the page, saved it, then re-uploaded it to my server. This updated the "time stamp" of the page. When I did this Google updated the cache usually within a day (last time, within hours).

The ironic thing about this is that the page I have been documenting has more links to it than any other page on that site!

Note: It has also been documented that the cache date may be current one day and the next day Google is showing some older version of your page.

Caryl

 

I have seen similar activity, but have been barking up the wrong tree.

Thanks for the tip.

 

Yes thanks for the tip, never even thought of that. Nice.

 

Since I started monitoring and recording the cache dates daily, I made a little tool so I could check them quickly.

Cache Date Tracker

Caryl

 

Using that tool
Site:
www.mydomain

! = URL Not found in Google
That can't be good?

 

www.mydomain or www.mydomain.com ?(whatever tld)

 

I've had the same problem with cache dates but I have recently (last two months) been updating all the pages at least twice a week. I haven't seen any improvement in the cache dates.

 

www.mydomain.com and mydomain.com, neither in google i guess.
domain in question is www.iconrate.com

 

Typically, Google spiders sites with higher PR on a more frequent basis than sites with lower PR. Site with PR 5 and above often get spidered daily.

This cache "problem" is referring to when Google seems to visit a site with the "regular" frequency, BUT for some unknown reason does NOT refresh the cache.

It was a quote I found in Google's Help Center that made me take a much more serious position on cached pages...

http://www.google.com/help/features.html#cached

 

Google is very picky!!!!

Your site is listed as: www.iconrate.com/

Last Cache Date: Apr 25 2005 21:22:28 GMT

_______________

Google stores cached pages much like it does PR. The cached pages are retrived based on a "check sum" which is calculated by the url for your page.

www.yourdomain.com results in a different "check sum" than does www.yourdomain.com/
__________________

iconrate, the main page of your site is cached under...
http://64.233.179.104/search?q=cache:YTpHqZmjl7sJ:www.iconrate.com/+buddy+icons&hl=en

YTpHqZmjl7sJ being the specific "code" for your page (with the /).

Caryl

 

Sorry you've completely lost me. That cache url .... what is with the +buddy+icons&hl=en?
When I just used the tool the result given was:
http://216.239.53.99/search?q=cache:YTpHqZmjl7sJ:www.iconrate.com/ where did that extra + buddy icons come from?

 

Sorry, I manually searched for your main page by doing a search in Google for "buddy icons".

That is why "+buddy+icons&hl=en" is showing up in that cache url.

Caryl

 

Shawn,

I never did care much UNTIL I saw that my page's rank starting to fall.

It wasn't until March this year that I started to see a pattern develop. Having seen this pattern repeat itself 4 times within the last year, I certainly have begun to pay MUCH more attention to the cache dates.

I am simply sharing information that I have discovered and extensively documented.

Caryl

 

This is really interesting

I have a PR6 site and added new pages a few weeks back

Google had not added them into its index UNTIL I added content to my hp and thus saved a new copy

I think you are onto something...

 

I have not had to "change" the content of my pages to get Google to update BUT I do include a meta tag on my pages...

<meta name="Date" content="5/03/05">

... of which I do change the date on.

I started using that meta tag when I discovered Google reporting a "fresh cache date" but displaying an old version of the page. This way I know if Google is really utilizing the most current version of the page.

 

Caryl, have you tried to simply update the page without adding your date meta tag and noticed that your cache will still be updated regardless? The reason I ask is because I've done what you said in the past, but without the date meta tag and things don't seem to change. The page I have been working with is a PR5, btw, and is still on a 10 day cache cycle.

 

Up until now, the only pages that I have been closely monitoring for cache dates have all got the date meta tag.

So, to answer your question, no. Everytime I have opened and saved a page, I updated the meta tag date prior to saving and re-uploading to the server.

I would also like to take this opportunity to say that I am NOT recommending this "method" as a way to get Google to spider your site more frequently.

I have only used this to get Googles attention after long periods of "forgetting" the page while spidering my site.

here is the record I have kept since 3/5/2005
Cache Dates

 

Most of my pages are dynamic, and the "last modified" reported by the server was wrong, causing me issues in the past. What I came up with is a simple nightly cron job that runs thru all my webserver files and "touch"es them. (Updates the last modified date.) Since this was implemented Google now re-caches my pages daily.

DS

 

DS, mind telling us what that cron job looks like?