Referral Log

[davidku]

Hi ... I found Google referring visitors to me via my referral log BUT I can't see my site listed there when I follow the link.

Is this normal during the update ?

Thanks.

[dukeblue219]

That's probably just normal shifting of the databases. I'm getting lots of new visits from Google links that don't seem to exist. Apparently people must hit Google at the moment when they are testing the new updated DB on the regular servers (WWW), although I've never seen the new results on Google myself before the update was over.

[JayC]

Sure, different parts of the net are getting sent to different Google servers at any time. Usually that doesn't matter, because the same results are being delivered by any of them... but during an update that's not the case. So it's certainly possible that the results someone else got, that are reflected in your logs, aren't what you get when you try the same query.

How likely it is to happen depends on how greatly the changes in this particular update affected your site's listing.

I hope what you're getting is good news.

[bcc1234]

Just go to the same url you have as the referer but change www to www2 or 3 and you'll see your page.

[ciml]

At this time of the cycle it's probably for the reasons described above. It can also happen due to different preferences. For example, my Google default is to show 100 results, if you go to the same URL as me you might only see 10.

[bcc1234]

At this time of the cycle it's probably for the reasons described above. It can also happen due to different preferences. For example, my Google default is to show 100 results, if you go to the same URL as me you might only see 10.

That's why it's a good idea to go to the link in the referer field and not to just type the keyword from the query.

[ciml]

Even the 'http_referer' field doesn't guarantee. My 100 listings preference is in a cookie, the referer looks normal until I get to the next page of results.