Strange Search results form Google's Update

[Panacea]

Although I have been an avid reader for over six month, this is the first time I have posted a message. I hope the subject of my posting is appropriate for the topic of this forum.

I have a commercial web site that has a Google PR of 5. It ranks highly on Google for many major keywords that pertain to my site. It had maintained its highly ranked position for over 4 months until this week when Google updated.

Now my site is nowhere to be found for any keywords. The only way of finding my site is by searching for it by domain name. The strange thing is, when I do find my site, Google has added a strange extension to my URL. For example, instead of Google showing www.mysite.com, it now says, www.mysite.com/?Example+Foo

I have no idea what or where the (?Example+Foo) part has come from. It’s not on my index page or in any of the affiliate linking code on my index page.

Again, if I search for my site by domain name on Google it shows my site with this strange URL and a PR of 0. However, if I type my URL straight into my browser, the Google tool bar still give my site a PR 5. Can anyone shed any light on what’s going wrong?

Many thanks.

[Stefan]

Back in the spring I had a site link to my /index.htm with a <a href="http://www.site.org/?theirsite"></a> It did a number on my index page because after Google had crawled the page that had that link, my page was seen as duplicate content. I tracked the incoming link down, told them to change it, and then eventually my index came back in the serps. Perhaps that's what causing your problems. Not sure though... good luck.

Added: And welcome to Webmasterworld... :-)

[Panacea]

Thank you Stefan,

As I have nearly 1000 reciprocal link exchanges with other sites I can see the possibility of a site linking to mine and innocuously causing the problem. However, it also seems possible and open for abuse. All it would take then is for an unscrupulous competitor to deliberately sabotage my site by duplicating my page content.

Do you think it is advisably or even worth while emailing Google to see if they would re-index my URL?

[nakulgoyal]

Yes. Send an email to them and it would be there. But if you have a decent / geniune Link Building Campaign already done, that's enough of a reason for Google to visit and reindex your website.

[Stefan]

You should be able to find the site that has the bad link, (if this is actually the problem), if you hunt enough for it. Have you tried a Google search on "Example+Foo"?

In my case, the index.htm on www.mysite.org showed on a search of the "title" of my page as www.mysite.org/?example_foo. If you clicked on that URL, it would take you to my site, but with the dodgy URL in the address bar. For whatever reason that the linking site had done that, (others here would know... it might be for tracking), the Google crawl of their page saw it as pointing to a duplicate of my index, even though it actually went to my index, on my site.

In my case, it was easy to find who was causing the problem because the offending site was shown in the dodgy URL "www.mysite.org/?examplefoo.com". It took several emails to the examplefoo site to finally get it changed, and then Google straightened things out after everything had been recrawled. It took Inktomi about 5 months to correct it... (it had also happened in Ink).

Added: And yes, it sure struck me as something open to abuse by rival sites, if you had such, which I fortunately don't. I couldn't believe the problems it caused me.

[plasma]

Could Googleguy please comment on this?

[Panacea]

I have just been reading some posts in the: Not showing up in the index discussion. A lot of people are saying their pages are falling from Google, and it seems that the common denominator is that they host with GoDaddy.

Well, I have to admit, that also includes me. I would have mentioned it in my previous post had I thought it relevant.

[Panacea]

Stefan,
Yes I have tried searching for the site that could be the culprit causing the linking problem, if that’s what actually the problem is. Unfortunately, the only reference, the part that is pinned to the end of my URL:?Example+Direct+Link+Trade, does not bring back any search results.

Going through every one of my reciprocal links is like looking for a needle in a hay stack.

One would think that the technology Google uses, or the spidering it employees, could identify issues such as this and avert such problems.

[killroy]

To avoid the mess of having to tarck down all current and future backlinks, simply 301 redirect from all "variations" of your homepage straight to your homepage.

This should transfer PR properly, AND solve the duplicate page issue.

SN

[promis]

Hi,

My backlinks number has changed but very important backlinks like from Yahoo! PR5 page backlink are not shown!
Is this is end of the update or are backlinks added as we go?

Please help!

[Panacea]

I found the offending site that linked to mine causing the problem on Google. I have emailed them explaining the situation, so hopefully they will remove the link.

Thanks everyone for your advice

[Stefan]

Good to hear it, Panacea. Glad to have been of help.

Added: (I always seem to have to add something...) Killroy's suggestion is very good. You can also have problems if someone links to you with "site.org" rather than "www.site.org". I'm sure there are a few other variations that can mess things up.