Site off-line for 2 years, but you wouldn't know it

Google hasn't missed a beat

[Marshall]

I ran (& owned) an industry service/product specific directory web site for about 6 years from 99-05, with about 750+ static HTML pages and 1,500+ external links to the companies that were listed on the site, and all the appropriate key words, tags, etc. You might say this was a form of an industry specific vertical search. I took it off-line for about 2 years for reasons that are unimportant, but I did not relinquish the domain name. I did, however, re-direct to a similar site I owned.

Anyway, I am s-l-o-w-l-y putting it back up (new design). I have been working on it for about two weeks and have maybe 30 pages done (have to update all the old information - time consuming). I have not made ANY submissions to Google (or anyone else for that matter) but I am getting new submission requests (companies that want listed) and it's showing up in Google as if I never took it down. I am not complaining, though the site is not fully ready, but I am curious: does Google have a memory? I know, long post for simple question, but I am curious. I should mention, many sites STILL have links to this site even though it's been down.

Marshall

[tedster]

Google has a very LOOONNNGGG memory. I once took on a client and in studying their site I saw scores of backlinks pointing to a non-existent internal URL. The client said it had last been online 4 years before. I put some content at that URL and watched it pop into the top ten in about 3 days.

The depth of Google's memory, as well as what kinds of data they remember, can be gleaned from their patent on using history and age data [webmasterworld.com].

[Marshall]

Thanks tedster. Guess that makes Google the 'elephant' of in Internet :)

Marshall