Cache has been the same for about 4mo.. why?

Question about google's cache

[Dave_T]

Hi everybody...

The cache of my site has been the same since about 4 months ago.

I did add contents to the site specially this past 3 weeks. I also noticed that google crawl regularly to my site, about every 2-3 days and the deep crawl every end of the month.

I wonder why it still showing the old cache...

Does google use this cache for determining the rank of the site?

Is my site probably being penalized? the wierd thing is that the site still has PR5.

Thanks.

[Susanne]

Maybe Google isn't able to find your new pages. What type of navigation do you have on the site? Text links? Javascript dropdown menus?
If you've added content as recently as the last 3 weeks, then you must wait longer for the index to change. Usually if you add pages one month, they will show up EARLIEST after the next month's update but often two months into the future.

Does google use this cache for determining the rank of the site?

No, rank (if you mean pagerank) is determined by the rank and quality of other sites that link to you.
No, I don't think you are being penalised. Just make sure Google can find all your pages and travel easily through your site. Also, work on getting other, related sites to link to you. Cheers!

[wanderingmind]

It has been crazy for me too.

My site has a PR5, and freshbot and googlebot keeps visiting regularly

Every week, my site shoots up to rank 3 for my search phrase, and shows the latest updated pages in the cache. in another 3 days, i disappear again to rank 81. And the old cache returns.

Any idea what is happening?

[Susanne]

Yes, this is normal between updates. Wait until end of this month (which is when an update usually takes place) and your pages will most likely stay put in the index after that.

[Dave_T]

Thanks Susanne..

I used text links on my site. So it's probably not that.

The thing is I change something in my index page quite a while ago but google still uses the old index page in its cache. And my rank on the search result is still the same on page 7.

What I mean by "Does Google use this cache for determining the rank of the site?" is wether google use my old cache to determine the rank on the search result..

Thanks,

Dave

[Susanne]

Oh sorry Dave, yes Google uses the cached version to determine where you should rank. When you say you changed something on your index page "quite a while ago", how long ago is that? Did you change the file name too? Is the page static or dynamic?

[wanderingmind]

Same here. My cached page in google itself flipflops. And the ranking, alongwith it.

I have regularly been making changes to the pages, to feed Freshbot. No filename changes, text links etc.

By the way my site has a page in geocities, with different text, which was made a while back. This page has a PR7 rating, but not been indexed by google. Is that possible?

[Susanne]

wanderingmind,
Yes, the page gets its PR from "mummy" Geocities/Yahoo and does not have to be indexed for a PR to show on the toolbar.

[Dave_T]

THanks Susanne,

I have been changing the index page since the last 3 mo. I have added 30-40 articles using cfm in the past 2 weeks. And I also some file names, but not the index page.

The strangest thing is google has never even update the cache of my index page. It still used the old-old one.

Also strange thing happend last weekend, on some server it actually updated the cache to a not-so-new one, but the next day.. it rolled back to the old cache...

Does anybody know about this?
Thanks

David

[Susanne]

Dave,
It sounds very strange. You have changed the index page several times over the last three months but Google still has the old cache in its index? Can you actually see a Google spider visiting the index page in your log files? Are you using a robots.txt file that could be causing problems? Do you have a refresh on the index page? Is your server always up and running or have you had any down time that you know of?

[Susanne]

Dave,
You can also read jdMorgan's reply in this thread:
[webmasterworld.com...]

[Kurupt]

I also have had the same problem. A page that im trying to target for a certain phrase still shows the old cache from 2 months ago. The text, tags, and title all have changed. I even setup a Adwords group pointing to the exact page thinking Google would send out the spider and it would re-index the page. No such luck.

[Dave_T]

Susanne,

THanks for your help.. doesn't it sound strange? Last weekend and the weekend before google actually refreshed the cache on some of their server for a couple hours and then rolled back to the old version.

I did however checked my log and google did crawl and deep crawl my site for the past three weeks. There is no refresh tag and I know for a fact that the server is 100% up within the last 3 weeks.

Thanks for the link, I'll read that posting.

Dave

[Cossack]

Is anyone try to click on the cache link in the search results?