URL only with similar results - no title or description snippet

[Chard]

I wonder if anybody can remind me why Google suddenly shows a sites URL only as a title in the serps with "similar results" where the description usually appears. I know this has been covered before, but I can't remember what the explanation was.

Many thanks in advance for any advice on this

[tedster]

Does this thread help?

The url-only problem [webmasterworld.com]

[g1smd]

Having the same title and meta description on multiple pages is one thing to look out for, but that isn't usually the major problem in this case.

More importantly I would look for instances of "exact duplicate content" on the site: differing dynamic parameter order, differing dynamic parameters, www vs. non-www, multiple domains, http vs. https, differing URL capitalisation, etc.

.

Notes:
Differing dynamic parameter order: shirt.php?size=16&colour=blue vs. shirt.php?colour=blue&size=16
Differing dynamic parameters: product.php?item=234 vs. product.php?item=234&printfriendly=on
Differing URL capitalisation: page.asp vs. Page.ASP etc.

[Chard]

Thanks for the replies. Overnight it seems to have corrected itself - for now. So I've just resumed my lower-than-I'm-comfortable-with
position in the serps!

It's funny what you get used to, isn't it. 18 months ago I was mortified and couldn't sleep nights, because my site dropped from #3 to #7 for our very competitive keyword. Today we're #30 and I'm just accepting it and contemplating life without (free) Google traffic

Hey-ho - life goes on. Thanks again, guys.

[g1smd]

It might appear to have fixed itself, but I would still go looking for, and correct, any and all potential "duplicate content" problems.

It is possible that today you are simply looking at a different datacentre than whatever you were looking at before.

Next time you disappear, it might be for far longer. Maybe this was a warning as to what is coming...