Main site index issue

[JohnsonHk]

I found an index issue which confused me so much.
The amount of main site index is about 6k. (site:mysite.com in google.com)
The amount of a sub-directory index is about 282k.
(site:www.mysite.com/sub-directory/ in google.com),
what is going on? what happens? Can anybody helps and any comments are welcomed.

[jdMorgan]

Are you using the word "sub-directory" when you mean "sub=domain" here? Is the sub-directory you mention related to the sub-domain in some way?

At the most basic level, it appears that you may have a duplicate-content issue: You must configure your server so that for any given content (page or image), that content can be reached using one and only one URL; Any variation in protocol, subdomain, domain, port number, or URL-path must be 301-redirected to the single "correct" URL to avoid problems with incorrect incoming links and the resulting dilution of your URLs' search ranking.

Jim

[JohnsonHk]

Hi Jim,

No. The "sub-directory" I mentioned in my previous post is exact a general directory under the main site.

Yes. we do have some seo work for this page type, including URL structure, maybe you have pointed out the key fact of this index issue.
but another question is when google found the duplicate content, she do get the new pages indexed and reduced index amount of old ones, so what happened for the index of main site? I mean "site:mysite.com" and such a large gap between the index quantity of main site
and the one of a sub-directory do surprise us so much?

Thanks & Regards
Johnson

[jdMorgan]

It is difficult to understand your description of the problem, since "technical English" is much more difficult than conversational English when trying to discuss complicated problems. So, I'll try to keep it simple:

If you don't want /sub-directory URLs listed in Google search, then make sure that you don't link to /sub-directory on your site. Always link to the correct URL.

If you have linked incorrectly in the past, or if other sites have linked to /sub-directory URLs, you can use a 301 redirect to help "repair" the search listings. But you should only do this after all links on your own site are correct.

Jim

[JohnsonHk]

We do link to the correct URL and try to set a 301 for the old one. I know what you are talking about.

what confused me here is index issue.
A site:mysite.com
B site:www.mysite.com/directory/

B is much much larger than A? how can this happen?

Johnson

[jdMorgan]

Without knowing all about your site, we cannot answer. If there are more accessible URLs in the www-/directory/ URL-path, than in the non-www-/ path, then naturally the index count for those /directory/ URLs would be higher.

If not, then perhaps, Google is rebuilding their index of your site, and it just happened to start with www-/directory/ URLs. Or perhaps you have more in-bound links to URLs in the www-/directory/ URL-path. Or perhaps you have just a few in-bound links to that path, but those links are from sites that G considers to be authoritative.

The answer may be technical -- as in some server configuration effect, it may be temporal -- and thus will change over time, or it may be related to any one (or more) of hundreds of SEO factors in the Google ranking algorithm and filtering system.

Another thing you need to be aware of is that Google's URL counts are often *very* wrong. A site with four pages may be displayed as having eight indexed URLs, or even more. Maybe this is because the count is taken from the index of accessible URLs *before* any duplicate-content filters are applied. Or maybe, as theorized by more than a few SEOs, the count is wrong because Google likes to fool SEOs. I am not at all a fan of conspiracy theories, but at the same time, I believe that if G wanted to show correct counts, they could.

Jim

[JohnsonHk]

If not, then perhaps, Google is rebuilding their index of your site, and it just happened to start with www-/directory/ URLs.

Yes.I think so too. It may have nothing to do with inbound links and this situation has lasted for a week.We will keep on monitoring the changing of index.

Another thing you need to be aware of is that Google's URL counts are often *very* wrong. A site with four pages may be displayed as having eight indexed URLs, or even more. Maybe this is because the count is taken from the index of accessible URLs *before* any duplicate-content filters are applied.

Agree. The counts from webmaster tool may be closer to the fact.

Thank you very much for your kindly help.

Regards
Johnson