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If you do a site: search using Google UK's 'UK results only', the index pages of ten .com domains and three .net domains (out of 65 that I manage) are not listed.
1) All sites hosted in the UK across 4 different servers in 3 different DCs
2) No link exchanges, very little outward linking, no excessive inward linking. No inter-linking. These are not directories, MFA, affiliate. They are contact/services offered websites for UK companies and sole traders. Some are dynamic, some static. Size from under ten to under one hundred pages.
3) No canonical issues, no dupe content issues, no over-optimisation. I use the same techniques and links for all my sites. Number of affected sites has not grown since this problem was spotted. Unaffected sites re-cached this week.
4) Internal pages all listed AND RANKING for their terms.
Would other UK based webmasters like to share their experiences? Perhaps we can collectively contact Google and refer them to this thread.
I am an Xfactor viewer and yep great Leona won and Ray was great as well. Shame when I search "itv.com" that google have removed there homepage from uk results. Had to go on yahoo to find itv result in uk listings. Whatever is going on at google they are looking very silly right now. MSN and Yahoo had no problem listing itv.com as a uk domain and headlined the new Xfactor winner with a download to the single.
Google howether ommited itv.com homepage from uk results on some algo I doubt even they themselves understand.
[edited by: Pirates at 2:52 am (utc) on Dec. 18, 2006]
I believe google are on a deliberate path to hijack .com domains from the rest of the world instead of setting up and supporting a regional domain for the states. By gaining dot com domains google would give the states a worldwide advantage. Its interesting that yahoo and msn are not following this path though and are supporting regional .com listings. Don't be evil - google are looking to me the most evil thing out there.
It's got to be some kind of unintended consequence, some poor assumption in the filtering code, I think. Some sites in this thread report an "in and out and in again" kind of cycle. That shows me that Google knows they don't have it right, and your ITV example is certainly a glaring one.
With code as complex as google's, unintended consequences must haunt them constantly. SERPs are the end result of a large team's work and that can be very difficult to coordinate.
Do you use an ROS link back to you as the developer from your client sites?
No, on one page of each site only. Links are spread between three pages on our site. All three are ranking presently. Even when the home page is dumped, the other two rank.
Pirates @ 12:54 am on Dec 3, 2006 "I think I have an answer but posting it on forum may help people I don't want to so will intrust my solution if it works to Tedster as he hates spammers as much as I do."
Pirates @ 2:47 am on Dec. 18, 2006 "Whatever is going on at google they are looking very silly right now. Google howether ommited itv.com homepage from uk results on some algo I doubt even they themselves understand."
Pirates @ 4:09 am on Dec 18, 2006 "I believe google are on a deliberate path to hijack .com domains from the rest of the world..."
....and the winner is........?
I recently looked at a friend's (UK .com) site which - from here - seemed to be exhibiting the same symptoms. However, I ususally use a (US-based) proxy. His index page is missing when I use the proxy, but not when I don't. Mine, alas, is missing whichever way I look.
It looks like US-based (and presumably other international) searches on "google.co.uk" are routed to different DC's where (presumably) a different incarnation of the errant filter/alorithm is running. Unfortunately the Firefox "Show IP" extension only gives me the IP of the proxy, so I can't tell which DC(s) it is.
I can't think of any straightforward way to make use of this discovery, but if anyone has an idea...
What happened was I changed the title tag on my home page and now it's gone from the AU index.
I found the problem though, there is a page www.example.com/subpage/ that has a very similar meta description as the home page. When doing a site command on google.com.au with the "Pages From Australia" /subpage/ shows up, but without "Pages From Australia" /subpage/ does not show up.
Again, this is more evidence supporting my theory that this problem is caused by duplicate content, or at least caused by similar/same <head> content (titles, meta tags etc).
I have been hit and where I rank no 2-4 in www pages, I am now number 60ish in uk pages - until yesterday I always maintained rankings in top 6 of .co.uk pages and www for many searches. The site is uk based, focued and has more links in from .co.uk sites than .com
I do also own the .co.uk of the same domain, and have a different site - much smaller - but older than the .com - it has the same theme, but no duplicate content etc... and has always enjoyed similar rankings bobbing about around the .com in serps. It is hosted with a different compnay, but the who is details are the same.
Having read all the interesting post above I am wondering if there could be any releveance in the following:
My .co.uk links the .com - from the home page only, and does feed a substancial amount of traffic across.
the .co.uk is ranking in both www and .co.uk pages - could the .com have been knocked out of the top .co.uk because it has been recognised that the .co.uk is linking to it and is a similar theme - same who is data and therfore deming the sites as one?
I am sure that there isn't a community issue - just one link - but could traffic transfer together with whois have made .com fall so badly in .co.uk results?
Again, this is more evidence supporting my theory that this problem is caused by duplicate content, or at least caused by similar/same <head> content (titles, meta tags etc).
I am working on same theory as well. Although in this case a proxy hijack that pretty much does the same thing. ie. produces duplicate content. By duplicating the content of a non country specific domain in such countries as lets say Thailand (why did I think of that country, maybe because I was there recently and saw the original Star Wars Movie) I believe it then causes a problem on country specific results. My problem in curing this is not about blocking or identifiying the hijack but in google's speed at recrawling the copied content thats now shutout.
The idea of changing meta tag and title and description to speed up this process may provide the answer, but its important the proxy hijack is broken first.
I've been experiencing the same problem for months now. However, when i perform the 'pages from the uk' search -- the first 4 sites are all uk based .com sits - which leads me believe that since these 4 sites maintain 1st page results across G.com, G.co.uk and G.co.uk (pages from the uk) -- there must be something specifically about my site that google doesn't like...hmmm....<scratching head>...wonder what it is.
It only seems to occur when I change my home page.
Other than that, check for duplicate content such as:
/ - index.html
https - http
query strings
meta tags, titles etc
any other duplicate content you may have
[edited by: tedster at 2:39 pm (utc) on Jan. 3, 2007]
Search on google.com for "Football".
Top result="NFL.com - Official Site of the National Football League"
Even though the largest tv audience in the world is for the definition of football as the rest of the world understands it is the world cup final. And the largest search term on "football" in the world.
Google #*$! off back to states I need an SE that doesn't think the world resolves around the America.
[edited by: Pirates at 6:00 am (utc) on Jan. 2, 2007]
We have a popular .com site but is hosted in UK and is for UK market.
Specifically I have moved to a new server on a different IP in December (IP and server is still UK based). Also the noodp meta was put on the home page - based on the comments could this really be a culprit? Also in Nov, a geoIP script was put in place to serve a different banner to US IP address - in my mind this seems like the most likely issue.
the world resolves around the America
Well especially on the Net it does. Most Business angels in the world weren't up to scratch on IT, hence the big ideas were funded in America. I worked with people at FU Berlin having an algorithm like Google in 1997 and they were running their feet flat, unsuccessfully, for funding. Although I doubt the world would have backed a SE not in english.
So we need to firmly look at the UK, Australia and the other native English speakers to hopefully find some less risk averse investors.
Just do what you did with American Idol and the Office in IT. Come on Britain..!
today found also index only missing for a .info
same criteria
anything new out there Pirates?
any particular reasons for the same or its a nood error by google
I told you so - (Isn't it nice to be right - at least once)!
Is this some kind of a penalty of a data refresh
NB: But of course Adam wouldn't tell - and nobody else knows. My view? - forget about the conspiracy theories postulated by some in this thread: it's usually not malicious, just a mistake, by Google (they do make 'em, you know).
But someone managed to get Adam Lasnik's eye and that's great news AFAIC. I'd LOVE to know what the problem actually is... assuming that I could understand it :)
But someone managed to get Adam Lasnik's eye and that's great news AFAIC. I'd LOVE to know what the problem actually is... assuming that I could understand it :)
Thanks for the updates
even i hope that the error gets fixed and we see some positive shows
Lets hope this is now fixed.
