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MagickCrafter
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« Reply #15 on: June 14, 2007, 01:38:27 PM » |
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Wow, very useful posts, but it seems to be saying that that stuff only affects sitemaps users, and my dad has not signed up for a sitemap.
I mainly skimmed through it, but it has some very useful information, and would explain maybe why my dad disappeared from the index... if only he signed up for sitemaps.
Or, maybe now they are doing it to more than just the sitemaps users? Or does he just mean just the users who signed up for Google webmasters tools?
Thanks.
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Drilldown
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« Reply #16 on: June 14, 2007, 01:55:00 PM » |
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That forbidden knowledge is currently known only in the secret recesses of the Borg. Why don't you dive in and report back?  I think it means that if you sign up you can get a diagnostic report of information already collected. |
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MagickCrafter
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« Reply #17 on: June 14, 2007, 02:13:47 PM » |
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Wait, I think I got it!
The website you gave me said that a few reasons this may happen is:
-Hidden text
-Fooling search engine
-Lots of misspellings
Whenever me and my dad looks at any of our cached pages (my website and his), the background is NOT loaded until you refresh ON IE.
We discovered that IE does a flicker when loading pages, because it probably loads the body style last or something, so to solve it, we added a back: #ffffff on html {} in the stylesheet, so IE won't have such a noticeable flicker.
Soooo, what we think is happening, is that Google is using a browser that does this same "flicker" as IE does. We think that Google takes a snapshot directly before the flicker ends, so that Google's cache shows the page WITHOUT the background. So, Google's staff would go through the cache of all my dad's pages, and notice that the background is not loaded.
Not so bad, right?
WRONG!
My dad has a lot of his text on the left of his page colored WHITE, which is the default BG of Google's cache. So, Google goes through, sees thousands of pages with text with the same color as the BG, and, I'm assuming, takes my dad out of the index with suspicion that his pages are trying to cheat it.
This is just a theory, but to try to prevent it, my dad is going to add a <body background=""> on all of his pages. I am going to try to figure out how to make IE not do this "flicker", trying to prevent google from doing this in its cache.
If you do not believe me, I won't give you my dad's website URL, but you can test it by using my website as an example.
Go to IE 7 (I think it only does it on this browser) and type in Google "site:designandprogram.com" and click a few of the "cache" links. You will notice, if you inspect it, that it does not show the background. This does not stay in effect when you refresh the browser, so make sure not to refresh.
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leighsww
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« Reply #18 on: June 14, 2007, 02:33:47 PM » |
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Interesting what you have noted. That may or may not be it, but adding a background couldn't hurt. Uhmmm, regarding Google Sitemaps though ... I feel I have an obligation to at least point you to reading these following threads regarding it  : http://www.lunarforums.com/index.php/topic,34408.msg258706.html#msg258706http://www.lunarforums.com/index.php/topic,37320.msg278440.html#msg278440http://www.lunarforums.com/index.php/topic,33432.msg251329.html#msg251329This may or may not happen to you, but I feel I at least needed to let you know what happened to me and some others, and let you make the decision if you want to take a chance with implementing it (since you have high positions with your search keywords). I will say that when you first implement it, you will probably get knocked out for a bit, but then you'll get put back in. What positons you're put back in, is the question, and if you don't touch anything long enough, you may get your positions back. Who knows what will happen, lol. All I know is that I no longer have Google Sitemaps activated (it's been about a year), and I'm leaving it that way (at least for now, anyway ), but I'm currently still positioned #1 - #3 for most of my important keywords, and #4 - #6 for my others. I truly think that Google is just reindexing at the moment and thus why you are experiencing this fluctuation, as a few of my keywords a month ago weren't showing up at all and then they are back again in their positions without my having done anything. Like I said, I no longer worry about it, cuz it's just an endless roller-coaster ride and it's going to happen every-so-often whether you implement changes or not I do agree that you have to make sure to adhere to Google's rules to not get your site disqualified, so as long as you do that, you should be okay. |
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« Last Edit: June 14, 2007, 04:13:51 PM by leighsww »
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SteveW
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« Reply #19 on: June 14, 2007, 04:04:08 PM » |
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We think that Google takes a snapshot directly before the flicker ends,
I think you're "reaching" with this theory. Googlebot doesn't take a snapshot of the page. It gets the raw HTML page. It doesn't even load images or any of the subsidiary page elements. I don't even think it saves those elements in its cache. The reason I think this is that when someone loads one of my pages from the cache, my website receives the GET requests for all its subsidiary elements, just not the main page. Google would detect hidden text by comparing the stated text color with the stated background color, if any, for that part of your page. The key here is that they do not do it by a visual examination or by a snapshot that would simulate a visual examination. They would do it by reading the textual tag properties. However, if your text really is white, I can't say that your theory is totally off base, and it's something to experiment with. But don't think about it visually. Pay attention to the text colors as declared in the tags. You might be safest to experiment with the text color itself, not the background color. I'm not even sure Google loads your CSS (just like it doesn't load the images and stuff). If it doesn't, and if you use CSS, it won't matter what you change the BG color to in your CSS. You'd have to change the text to something other than white. Or, basically, you'd have to make sure that your text color and background color are explicitly declared to be different colors in your HTML, not in your CSS. Google "site:designandprogram.com" and click a few of the "cache" links. You will notice, if you inspect it, that it does not show the background. When I did this, I think it did display the background, but maybe I'm not looking at the thing you're talking about. The background starts out gray, then the background of the text area switches to white. is that Google is using a browser that does this same "flicker" as IE does Googlebot's "browser" is like Lynx. It just retrieves the text. Other people have noted recent big changes in Google indexing. I have seen it, too, the past few days, though it might have started a few days before that and I just wasn't watching. The recent changes are bigger than they have been in many months. Because your dad's is a commercial site, I believe you are correct to be investigating this as thoroughly as you are. Unfortunately, your dad not allowing the URL to be posted here makes it more difficult to help. There might be something seriously wrong that someone might notice, such as all text being rendered with document.write() (just kidding), that they can't notice if they can't look at the page. You might try reading at http://groups.google.com/group/Google_Webmaster_Help?hl=en, and possibly posting a question. This is a very active forum for people wondering why their rankings are fluctuating. |
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« Last Edit: June 14, 2007, 04:16:42 PM by SteveW »
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SteveW
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« Reply #20 on: June 14, 2007, 04:36:47 PM » |
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If you Google search for a highly unusual (unique) phrase that appears on one of the pages that is supposedly not ranked now, does that page turn up at all in the SERPs?
How are the pages doing in Live and Yahoo?
What is the nature of the text that might be the same as its background color? Is it ad links, or what? The reason I ask is that hidden text or hidden links might be the basis of some sort of penalty, but I wouldn't expect it to be a complete ban. It sounds like what you're saying is half your dad's site has disappeared from the index. That sounds more like a complete ban, or Google thinks that part of the site no longer exists, or something along those lines, though I didn't intend it to sound as extreme as that does.
Check your logs. Is Googlebot still crawling the pages that have disappeared from the index? That is important. If it's not even crawling, that may imply a ban.
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Drilldown
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« Reply #21 on: June 14, 2007, 04:57:24 PM » |
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Very interesting reading. It prompted me to look around some more, and it seems that it takes some time to earn enough Google-trust so they will divulge the violations they've found. If they don't trust you they won't even hint that you've got a penalty. This reminds me why I use Google to learn about Google, and all the others to learn about everything else. (SE-neutral footprint) The notion that a robot is trusted to judge intention or the difference between good and evil is deeply disturbing. / soapbox > Here is an overview of ranking factors (to see negative ones scroll way down) http://www.seomoz.org/article/search-ranking-factorsA note about CSS; I've noticed Google does download my CSS and Yahoo has indexed my CSS, of all things. |
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« Last Edit: June 14, 2007, 05:14:04 PM by Drilldown »
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MagickCrafter
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« Reply #22 on: June 14, 2007, 06:53:25 PM » |
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I don't really have much time to read all of these posts (wow), but I have a response to this: However, if your text really is white, I can't say that your theory is totally off base, and it's something to experiment with. Yeah this is very weird because my dad's background of the page is WHITE. The background IMAGE is not white, and only is applied to the left side of the page so the white text on it can be seen. So, there is a black strip on the left (BG image), and the rest of the bg is white, with black text, and there is white text on the black strip. It looks like, to me, this may be why google does this, as there is actually no black bg for the left side. Should I add a backup black BG in case? |
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MagickCrafter
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« Reply #23 on: June 14, 2007, 11:52:29 PM » |
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NEWS: My dad's rankings came back better than before  Thank you guys for all of your help, we are still working on why we have disappeared, if there is a reason  |
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SteveW
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« Reply #24 on: June 15, 2007, 06:24:04 AM » |
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A note about CSS; I've noticed Google does download my CSS and Yahoo has indexed my CSS, of all things.
It turns out Google is getting my CSS, too, twice in 2006 (20 minutes apart!), and once a month in Mar, Apr, May this year. I wasn't seeing it because it wasn't retrieved as a component of each crawled page, but it is being crawled independently just like any other page. |
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Drilldown
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« Reply #25 on: June 15, 2007, 08:02:22 AM » |
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Yes, and there are Google IPs that use browsers and do not identify themselves as googlebot. With "double takes," Google is checking whether your site delivers one content to googlebot and other content to browsers, and whether content changes with each visit.
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