Google and 403 Errors

[webgator]

We are working with a shopping cart site that currently has no rankings or pages indexed in Google. We checked the log files and the site is getting spidered on a pretty regular basis. There were in fact 639 hits in the last 24 hours from Googlebot.

We used the server head check here on Webmasterworld and the site returned a 403 error. The host says they have security settings that require HTTP_USER_AGENT and HTTP_HOST in all requests and the server header check is not passing the HTTP_USER_AGENT

Their thinking is that Google wouldn't be blocked because Google does pass HTTP_USER_AGENT and HTTP_HOST

But is it possible that the security settings are preventing Google from fully spidering the site or that Google sends out spiders that are not returning the HTTP_USER_AGENT and HTTP_HOST?

Any help would be appreciated.

[Marcia]

Is any of the site being indexed at all? Are there static pages plus a cart, or does it all consist of the shopping area like some do?

[webgator]

The site isn't being indexed at all by Google though it has been indexed by Yahoo. The only listing in Google is for the home page, but it appears that it wasn't spidered, just that Google has found the site through links. There is no cache or title or description to accompany the link.

[Marcia]

I'm no techie, but if there are several good quality inbound links and it's not being indexed then it sounds to me like there's a problem at the server level.