Banned from AOL?

[locke]

I did a search for this on both Google and WebmasterWorld site search, so I hope this isn't a question that has been asked a bunch. I have several sites that are ranking really well on Google (and also on Yahoo, ATT.net, and Earthlink,) but they don't show up at all on AOL. Can anyone think of a reason this might be? From what I've seen, AOL generally filters their results less than Google and Yahoo, so it surprised me to see these sites gone.

Any help would be greatly appreciated...

[jeremy goodrich]

Sometimes there are huge discrepencies between AOL / Google proper - they have the ability to filter their implementation of the Google database...so, it's entirely possible that they may return different results.

[locke]

thanks for the reply, it does seem fairly apparent that they filter differently from Google. :)

I was mostly hoping for possible theories as to why AOL would (seemingly) drop my site.

[jeremy goodrich]

First, when was the last time you got a click from AOL? And what kind of traffic do you usually get on a daily basis?

Next, has your site been down? It could be "missing" from one of Google's data centers, which could perhaps be the one that AOL queries, which could result in your site being "missing"...

More info would help us all spot if there is a problem that perhaps more people are experiencing...

[locke]

Oh, thanks, I think you nailed it. I guess I need to learn to be a better critical thinker. I've been a lurker off and on here on WebmasterWorld for a while, as I do this part time, so I guess it never occurred to me that AOL would display results from a different datacenter than the general www.google.com server.
The site that disappeared from AOL was down for about a week, but Google didn't spider it during that time. When you asked how many click-throughs I get, it got me thinking. I don't get a lot of traffic to this site because it's for a pretty niche market, but I did get a couple clicks from AOL while the site was down. So most likely AOL tracked that.

Thanks for taking the time out from modding to help me work through this. :)

[jeremy goodrich]

It's what we're here for -> helping people ;)

Glad you got it sorted.