Googlebot got the URL from adwords

[QNetwork]

Here is a line from the log:

2002-11-12 06:50:43 216.239.46.77 - W3SVC202 <hostname> <ip address> 80 GET /<page name>?source=adword - 404 123 4184 422 47 HTTP/1.0 <domain> Googlebot/2.1+(+http://www.googlebot.com/bot.html) - -

This line referred to a 2 day old page. This page is on Adword. I specify "?source=adword" for better tracking. Googlebot got 404 although the page works with the above format. Generally I've not seen any "?" in the log for dynamic pages. This is not a dynamic page. I just used "?" for tracking.

DId anyone ever seen Googlebot to get the link from Adwords?

[hurlimann]

No

[JuDDer]

It may just be that somebody who was link building clicked on your AdWords link, then used that url to add to their links page which googlebot then crawled.

[bodine]

To quote GoogleGuy:

Nope nope nope. No connection between advertising (either pro or con) and getting crawled. There are lots of ways that a "secret" site could get crawled.

I can also say that none of my Adwords have ever been crawled. (Darn-it!)

To see that quote in it's context, see:

[webmasterworld.com...]

[larsj]

I had the same thing happened to me two days ago, according to the weblogs. Strange.

[QNetwork]

I have a bunch of other pages in Adword. Never seen any of those being referred by Googlebot.

JuDDer: You might be right. But Adword uses redirect url for physical URL addressing. So instead of the real url, it will so something like "http://www.google.com/url?q=<realpage>&sa=l&ai=A4BSVO4U09AYpegqxks5RpLOTdaJ_B0c2EXgABApTAA5vFEgABA&num=1". Who is going to decipher the real address from this but also include "?source=adword".

Anyway, thanks for all the answers.

[edited by: QNetwork at 7:02 pm (utc) on Nov. 12, 2002]

[allanp73]

i spoke to the people at Google. I was trying to get a site indexed and asked if by using adwords I could get the site indexed. They told me that adwords does not affect indexing or ranking.

[QNetwork]

Happened again twice last night and once this morning. In all cases it got 404. It was the freshbot. I removed "?source=adword" string from Adword URL. I'll see what happens next. It does not matter how the bot got the url. I want to get the page crawled.

[GoogleGuy]

Glad you got the right answer, allanp73. Let me know if you ever hear differently from someone at Google. ;)

QNetwork: Probably a link in the ODP would be a good start. Doesn't hurt to submit your page either.

[jomaxx]

Strange that it came up with a 404. Google gets lots of 404's from my server, but they're invariably due to incorrect links from third party websites.

[QNetwork]

As I mentioned yesterday, I removed the "?source=adword" part from the Adword URL. Googlebot came in later that day and got the page. No 404 this time. No reference to adword too. This might be a coincidence because the link for this page is available in the home page and in some other pages. But there was no more 404 with "?source=adword". I checked today's log. It's not there too. I am glad that the freshbot crawled the page. But I still could not explain how it got that adword part.

QNetwork: Probably a link in the ODP would be a good start. Doesn't hurt to submit your page either.

Goggleguy: Thanks for the suggestion about ODP. The site is waiting in a very short queue for about 3 months. The category has not been updated since June 2. I like ODP. But with the recent ODP problems, I am kind of loosing faith. Fortunately Google is crawling my site. I am happy.

[HayMeadows]

I submitted about eight sites in the last three to six months that have all been recently listed in ODP. I think they have been doing a lot of work on getting editors.

One suggestion, kind of goes without saying, but I believe it has REALLY helped:

Make sure you submit to the best category and submit a description they will not have to be changed.

[QNetwork]

HayMeadows: Thanks for the suggestions. I applied for becoming editor. So far, I did not receive any rejection or acceptance email.

[Brett_Tabke]

Well, you have to figure that Google is going to run a link checker over AdWords urls. Rather tacky if a click on an ad comes up 404.

[Good_Vibes]

To answer GoogleGuy's request:

I was at a seminar where a VP of Google spoke (Wendy Muller - Head of Canadian advertising and sales operations) in Montreal, Canada, in November. Although to her credit she repeated often that she was not an engineer, and she was pushing heavily for the adwords program. Her and her assistant (his name eludes me) stated strait out that the best way to get listed in Google, without any links to your site from directories or other pages, is to get into the Adwords program.

[QNetwork]

Rather tacky if a click on an ad comes up 404.

The URL did not generate 404 when clicked from the Adwords link in the Google search page. But generated 404 when the freshbot tried to crawl the page.

[Brett_Tabke]

I'm just saying they need to run a spider over those urls to make sure they aren't 404. Hence, the spidering immediatly after adwords submission if the page isn't in the index. Additionally, they do spot check redirects to make sure no one is playing games.

So the fact that googlebot showed up, is only indication that the system is working and doesn't reflect crawling, indexing, or submission patterns.