Server and IP change - Google removed homepage

[nuthin]

Hi,

I am trying to identify why Google has removed the home page of a well established client of ours.

Basically I found out that last week that they were switched to a new server and they were allocated new IP's etc.

These steps I don't believe were followed - [google.com...]

The web site was moved to the new server and completely removed off the old one straight away. I have a feeling that this has caused Google to drop the home page.

After I found out, I thought I could just drop some links to the home page to re-activate crawling quickly of the new location however after 1 week, the home page is still not indexed.

Also part of the CMS was also upgraded and alot of the URL's changed, we have just put 301's on the old destinations to the new ones.

One week would seem long enough for Google to re-index the home page I would have thought unless something technically is still occuring.

I am looking for advice on what steps I can take to get the home page re-indexed? Should I put the site back on it's old server for a bit?

Or?

Thanks!

[Robert Charlton]

Did they redirect the old domain to the new one? Essentially, the DNS A records of the old domain need to point to the IP of the host for the new domain, and mod_rewrite then used to rewrite requests for the old domain to the new one.

If you keep both sites up when you make the move, the move is often seamless. But you need to continue to keep control of the old domain and to continue to point it to the new hosting space, more or less in perpetuity.

[nuthin]

The domain hasn't changed at all, they were just moved across to another server and for the life of me, don't understand why the home page was dropped during the move. If it was due to IP address / DNS delegation, I would have expected 1 week would have been sufficent to re-index it.

There a fairly large local company so authority and turn around times are usually quick when it comes to indexing of content on the site. :/

Just confirmed the client points the A records to our web server, which is why the name servers point to a different IP.

Never experienced anything like this before so not too sure what I should be saying to the client in regards to ETA.

[Robert Charlton]

The domain hasn't changed at all...

Sorry, I was adding an extra and unnecessary consideration.

These steps I don't believe were followed...

By this, I gather that the old site wasn't kept up while the DNS info for the new server propagated. Generally, even without this (eg, if you're changing both hosting and DNS), things get picked up in a couple of days.

Possibly the nameserver had a very high TTL cache setting, which might cause Google to keep the old IP settings and thus delay reindexing. Any way of checking with the host what the setting was?

[nuthin]

Cheers, thanks for the tips.

I will be able to check out the TTL cache setting when I'm in the office tomorrow, at least I can go back to the client with something.

* Wait 1 more week to see if it naturally comes back
* Put the web site back up on the old server to see if the home page can get re-indexed that way
* Confirm the TTL cache setting of host to see if this is causing delay
* Submit re-inclusion request, can't harm

Alot of the generic high volume keywords are of course powering the rankings for the home page, so hopefully we can get this fixed for them soon! =]

At least the system admin now knows the procedure of moving sites in relation to Google, so if anything has come good out of this is that hopefully it won't happen again. :)