Home page not index by Google anymore

But all other pages indexed! Penalized?

[DeckIS]

When I type our home url into Google I get the following message:

Sorry, no information is available for the URL www.example.com
•If the URL is valid, try visiting that web page by clicking on the following link: www.example.com
•Find web pages from the site www.nbwebexpress.com
•Find web pages that contain the term "www.nbwebexpress.com"

Generally, we rank number 2 in Google’s core index for a very competitive keyword. When we are listed 2, Google serves our home page url www.example.com, as we would expect them to. Every couple of months though, Google starts using an algorithm that penalizes or dilutes our core listing results for a few days even up weeks at a time. Then we drop to page 2 or even page 3 with a url like www.example.com/?s1=domain&s2=logo&s3=keyword (a link to our home page with tracking data). This has been happening on and off for about a year. Any advice?

[cheaplcds]

Same thing happened to me, found out that another site is using a 302 Redirect along with a Meta Refresh 0 tag. So as of now my site is gone from Google, or the index page at least, tried removing the offenders page but the meta refresh 0 tag prevents me from doing so. This might be the same problem in your case, a site doing a 302 redirect basically page jacking making Google think that their page is the real one.

[g1smd]

Adding the <base> tag to all pages of your site (especially the index page) might help you...

[zoltan]

How and where to add the <base> tag? Can you please explain?

[EasyCall]

It goes in the head portion of your page like a meta tag:

<base href="http://www.yourdomain.com">

[walkman]

>> Adding the <base> tag

any downside to that? This will that mean that any link will start at domain.com/ ?
I'm thinking about adding it...just in case , but need to be sure

[cheaplcds]

Useful tag but doesn't not prevent others from page jacking using 302 redirects. I'd say your best bet is to do a search on Google for snippets of text on your page, if another site turns up with the same exact title and content try using Google's page removal tool. Otherwise you'll just get penalized for an indefinite amount of time like my site.

[g1smd]

The base tag can contain only the root domain, only if you use absolute links within your site, otherwise each page of the site needs the base tag to contain the full URL of that page instead.

[twebdonny]

Sorry, but this is all just speculation.

Only those actually working in the IT department
at Google know the answers for sure, and I'm not
even certain of that anymore.

Any changes you make to your domain based on
information that you may read here is all based on speculation and May do you more harm then good.

IMHO
DJ

[SveinK]

This is what happened to me two days ago.

I have an old site with lots of original content that ranked two and three on a very competitive term for years. I base my business on this. Then my index page suddenly disappeared from Google and my site was dropped. I have just found my index page: it's "stolen" and is indexed on a cheat site. They have put a <BASE HREF on top of the site. This is very serious for my business and future.

What can I do? I do not understand how Google can index this site as original and punish my site that is the original? Do they put the <BASE HREF there to make Google believe it's the original?

[g1smd]

Put one on your site and then see who wins....

[Stefan]

if another site turns up with the same exact title and content try using Google's page removal tool.

You might want to do some reading-up on that before you try it. If the technique isn't right, you can do a lot of damage.

[jlander]

I've had the same problem for several months, that I thought was caused by a duplicate content penalty. I did a reinclusion request and was told that my site had no manual penalty.

Today, after reading this thread, I found something disturbing. Almost a year ago I moved my site to a different ISP. Since then, I've contacted the old host at least 3 times to deactivate my old site. The old site (I've removed all content), is still accessable by IP address, and there are still supplemental listings for it.

Well, today I see that it is still up and has been hacked by someone that has put some infinite 302 redirects. I have no idea what else he is doing, but the results for that IP are comming up when I search for my domain.com. I nolonger remember the account password, but it is saved in my FTP program.

If anyone can take a look and see if this is why my site is penalized, I'd appreciate it. Sticky me and I'll send you my domain and the old IP.