I was just going through the KWT and checking the number of pages indexed for some sites. I noticed that an old domain/site that is now 301'd to another domain (as they used to have very similar content) showed different numbers than each other for the first time in about a year...since I did the 301. The rankings from site B have suffered a bit in G over the past couple of days and it appears this is why. I checked to see what G showed for site A with the site: operator and sure enough, G is showing pages with Feb 2004 cache dates....that no longer exist. Good times. <edit>The more I look at this, it appears that Google is currently not counting or recognizing the 301's to the new site.</edit>
I've heard a few others mention that sites with multiple domains pointed to the same site have fallen with G's bourbon update.
Yeah, I am figuring that this will work its way out. These were two totally separate web sites at one point, but due to the fact that they had similar content and sold basically the same products, we 301'd one to the other about a year ago. Interesting that Google still has some of the old pages from the site that does not exist anymore deep in their cache. I have not seen them for over a year.
Google was having problems with redirects before, so I took all mine out. Essentially, Google had been showing the redirected URLs as having the same content as the targeted URLs. Which I didn't consider a good thing.
Brian, in this situation that was exactly what we were looking for....I think. Now that I read what you wrote again, not sure what you are saying. Before, as I remember it, a site: for the redirected domain would show me the pages for the domain it was redirected (301 in this case) to. Is that what you saw or are you talking about the original URLs?
NOTE: Looks like G is now showing 7 pages with no cache, no supplemental link and clicking the 'similar pages' link shows nothing. There were 16 pages total before and many had caches from 2/2004.
Don't assume it's over 'til it's over... I know it's hard not to look but it's a lot healthier not to.
Good advice Minstrel. My nerves are shattered as the graph of my backlinks and rankings just goes up and then the next day it goes down and then back up again...... If Burborn kills Google's ability to do 301 redirects then I'll really start abusing Google. I spent all my time doing 301s instead of 302s and I'd have to change back or do something else.
More evidence to support chachi's theory about Google changing 301 handling. Over a year ago I 301'd the old domain to the new domain. For almost a year now, they have been showing the same number of backlinks and the same number of pages. They have been one domain. They are now showing different numbers of pages and backlinks. It appears that 301's are dead. I wonder if Google did this on purpose or on accident?
Yeah I did a site redesign a few months ago and 301ed the old page URLs to the new ones. It took about 2 weeks for Google to recognize this and update most of the URLs. Then as of about 2 weeks ago suddenly the old pages are back in Google, along with the new ones.
I am wondering if this is a bug introduced in their attempt to fix their 302 vulnerabilities. I sent a note to Google's Contact Us form, but only received a jejune automated form reply.
It will be interesting to hear what they say...if anything. It appears that most of those redirects are now straightened out...but the rankings have not returned.
Very wise words Minstrel. It is a little obsessive, watching google go up and down. =) Even for the little people like me. I should give it a rest, Thanks!