Avoid sending 304 to googlebot

(to get better listing)

[chrissi]

Hi,

I heared google lists pages better that did change very often. Google gets sometimes a 304 header (site not changed) when it is crawling my site. Maybe I should tell my webserver not to send such 304 headers.

So google can't think the site has not changed and maybe I get the bonus (for fresh content) every time?

Or maybe google is also comparing the content of the site and what I get is only much more traffic to pay for ...

What do you think?

Chris

[ThomasB]

As long as the content remains the same, it won't welp you. Google recognizes if a site changed by comparing the old and the new one.

Thomas

[BigDave]

chrissi,

If you want better results in the searches, forget trying to take shortcuts.

In the time it takes to try and trick Google into thinking you have fresh content, you could have created some actual fresh content, or gotten yourself another link or two.

While it is important to keep track of "what currently works" with google, you should always strive for creating a well rounded site, because google *will* change their algo on a regular basis.

[claus]

>> I heared google lists pages better that did change very often

That's not entirely true. It's not entirely wrong either. A brand new page that has never been spidered/indexed before will sometimes get a temporary boost in the rankings. It seems the same goes for an updated one, but "updated" can be so many things.

Don't be scared of the "not modified" header. If the page hasn't changed it hasn't changed, no big deal. I have pages that rank very good with very rare updates. I'm glad Googlebot gets those "not modified" headers, as this saves my bandwith; i'd rather spend it on real people visiting the site.

/claus