Funny behavior in google with redirection

Pages can be seen in Google Webmaster tools but not in search result

[snakefoot]

I re-designed my homepage the 1 july this year, and made sure that the old pages were redirected to the new pages (Using META REFRESH with delay, so I guess that makes it a 302 redirect).

Believe that most of my pages have been forwarded correctly and accepted by google, but I have noticed a few pages that fails.

This page will not be replaced by the new page:

> http://example.com/directory1/internet.html
> http://example.com/directory2/directory3/internet-explorer-6/

This page have been completely removed, but in Google Webmaster Tools then it correctly sees that the new page has over 300 incoming links:

> http://example.com/directory4/directory5/services.html
> http://example.com/directory6/directory7/services/

This page have been correctly forwarded without any problems, and Google Webmaster Tools now reports that the new page has over 500 incoming links:

> http://example.com/directory4/directory5/prompt.html
> http://example.com/directory6/directory7/command-prompt/

Why are the first two pages not accepted by Google?

Thank you in advance

-Rolf

P.S. Have now changed the forwarding of the services.html so it is a clean 301 redirect just to see what happens.

[edited by: tedster at 9:30 pm (utc) on Oct. 13, 2007]
[edit reason] make urls anonymous [/edit]

[tedster]

Hello snakefoot, and welcome to the forums.

Using META REFRESH with delay, so I guess that makes it a 302 redirect

No, that just makes it a slow meta refresh -- the server can still return a 200 OK http header for a url with a meta refresh. With any redirect, it is important to double check your actual results. You can do this with Firefox plus the Live HTTPheaders extension.

For a 302 temporary redirect within the same domain, Google SERPs show the source url with the title and snippet taken from the new target url.

For a 301 permanent redirect, Google SERPs never show the old, source url in the index, but only the new target url.

[snakefoot]

Thank you for welcoming me :)

I know that the HTTP headers still returns 200, but it seems that search engines accepts undelayed META REFRESH as being similar to the real 301 redirect. And there are some who say that delayed META REFRESH are accepted as 302 redirect, like Yahoo does:

[help.yahoo.com...]

But this doesn't explain why Webmaster Tools shows that it has accepted the redirecting for services.html, but the new page is not visible in the search index.

-Rolf

P.S. Have now requested that the internet.html file should be removed from the Google search index.

[edited by: Robert_Charlton at 10:39 pm (utc) on Oct. 13, 2007]

[Robert Charlton]

And there are some who say that delayed META REFRESH are accepted as 302 redirect.

snakefoot - Meta refreshes were discussed recently in another thread, and Yahoo's treatment is as you describe, but I could find nothing authoritative about Google...

301 Redirect with regards to passing PR
meta or .htaccess for google
[webmasterworld.com...]

Here's part of what I posted...

Yahoo Search Help
How does the Yahoo! Web Crawler handle redirects?
[help.yahoo.com...]

META Refresh: <meta http-equiv="refresh" content=...> is recognized as a 301 if it specifies little or no delay or as a 302 if it specifies noticeable delay.

I can't find any authoritative references about Google's approach, but chances are that it's similar.

I should add that this is contrary to traditional wisdom on the subject. Further discussion about this in the above thread.

PS: snakefoot - After I edited your post, we were both posting at the same time so we now have two references to the same Yahoo info. ;)

[edited by: Robert_Charlton at 11:04 pm (utc) on Oct. 13, 2007]

[snakefoot]

My question was not about 301 / 302 / META-REFRESH, but about why Google Web Master tools shows that it has recognized the redirection of services.html (Like it has with with the other pages), but still the new url doesn't show up in the search index (But it works for the other pages).

[edited by: tedster at 4:47 am (utc) on Oct. 14, 2007]

[tedster]

301 redirects do not always show up in the search results immediately. It can take a while, especially when every url on a website changes. Google does take some time to sort it all out, and the new urls may get added in gradually.

But the basic thing you want - new urls showing in search results - this can be achieved by using only 301 redirects.

[snakefoot]

It is just that it has been several months (Since 1 july) and while most pages have been redirected properly then some pages are still not in the search index, even though that Google Webmaster tools shows that it has accepted the redirection.

[SebastianX]

Google treats undelayed meta refreshs like 301 redirects (official statement from Google which I can't link here), hence it's ok that those are handled in GWC stats as such.