Duplicate content problem, or just the usual index dance?

[dickbaker]

I have a site that was launched in late May. It's only been in the last couple of weeks that Google has indexed all of the pages.

But there's one page missing from the Google index, and it's one of the six main subpages. It was there a few days ago, but now it's completely gone. It doesn't show up on any datacenter.

This page had a javascript tool that I used from a freeware site. The page's content was probably at least 50% similar to the page that I got the script from.

Other sites I own have pages that are as much as 80% similar to the pages of manufacturers who have given me permission to use their product photos and descriptions.

But the loss of this particular page in the Google index bothers me. Is it a duplicate content issue, or just part of the Google index dance?

I should add that I made some changes to the page last week, adding a few sentences and links to other pages on the site.

Any opinions are very much welcome.

[Quadrille]

On what search does it fail to appear?

Have you tried searching for [a string of unique content from the page] - that's the real test of whether the page is indexed usefully.

[dickbaker]

Quadrille, thanks for the reply.

I've since changed the page in question, moved the javascript tool to its own page, and have changed the content on the page in question.

Since the page in question isn't in Google's index, and I no longer have a copy of it, I wouldn't know what phrases to search for.

The indexing of my site's pages has been in flux for a couple of months now. I'm hoping that the disappearance of this page is just part of the index flux, and not some sort of penalty.