D3mon - 11:02 pm on Aug 29, 2004 (gmt 0)

After rewriting my site for XHTML1.1 compliance, I have been dropped twice from Google listings.

My site now runs browser-sniffing code to serve XHTML1.1 to compatible browsers and HTML4 to others, in accordance with W3C guideleines, but this has served only to cripple my chances of getting (and staying) properly listed.

After the first drop, I has assumed that the Google spiders were having trouble with the XHTML code and decided to check for the google bot and serve it the HTML4 compatible version of the site's pages. After some time, the site was re-indexed, but only the domain name was present in the results listings. Now, about a month later, it has been dropped yet again.

I can only assume now that the detect code in the site is being incorrectly detected by Google as a method of 'cloaking'.

Is returning to HTML4-only code the only way forward?