On site google search

Not finding a page

[spinweb]

A client of mine has Google search placed on their site to allow visitors to search the content of their site. They have been doing test searches and have not found a certain page in their SERP for a rather unique phrase, even though the page appears to be a very good match with the phrase.

I did an allinurl search at google and did not find the page listed in their index.

The page is 7 levels down in the site (no I didn't design it and yes I agree it is "buried" in the site). It is not surprising that google has not found the page. BTW the site was built using active server pages.

My questions are:

For on site search, is google going back to their main index to retrieve pages, or do they spider and index sites differently for on site search? Meaning, does google crawl sites with google's on site search more deeply than other sites, knowing that the site wants all pages to be eligible for any on site search?

My thought is that they should add a link to this page directly from the site map so that this sequence: "home page/site map/unique page" will make the page easier for the spider to find than the current position 7 levels deep in the site. Are their other alternatives? Thanks for your help.

[elklabone]

I'm not sure exactly what your question is... and I'm pretty green...

But, if you can get the page closer to the homepage via sitemap or other means, you should get that page indexed quicker. Also, if external links will always help. If you can find someone to link to that page from outside that will help as well.

Also, you might check and see if there's a server-side utilty like Googlestats (AKA Robostats) for .asp that can help you monitor the travels of googlebot and other spiders through your site.

Good luck.

[cbpayne]

You are right - a Google site search does not search the site, it searches the Google index for pages from the site. If that page is not in the Google index, then it will not be returned in a search.

Your solution re the site map is the best option. Google may crawl deeper into the site eventually, but that may depend on how high the PR is. Submitting the page to Google could be a 'long shot', but worth a try - even if this gets the page into the index, its no guarantee that it will stay there if the bot does not crawl it.

[zgb999]

It would be too good if "on site google search" would allow google to take all pages of a site in their index.

Does Google go any deeper than in other sites without the on site google search?

[cbpayne]

"Does Google go any deeper than in other sites without the on site google search? "

I assume not. If it did we would all have a Google site search on our sites.

[zgb999]

It would make sense if Google gave some extra attention to those who have Google search on their site.

But I agree, if they did much more people would use Google search on their site.

[spinweb]

Thanks for your help.