blanks in cached google urls

[the_nerd]

sorry if this has been asked a 1000 times - but I didn't find it in the faq:

google sometimes shows urls like
"www.mydomain/subdir/ sub2/file.htm"

Does anybody know what the blank in the url stands for?

[jeremy goodrich]

There are a number of reasons that Google could be putting a space in the url. The only guess I have is to thwart people that are spidering the SERP, so that they can't always get the right data. ;)

Or it could be from the webserver returning a strange response, or a spider error when the fetched the page, or a display error in their software, or...take your pick, really. I have yet to see a definitive answer myself too.

[Chris_D]

Hi the_nerd,

I have seen that a few times with one particular client. The 'clickable link heading' is fine - but the displayed (and unclickable) url in the search results has a space - always after a /

Its not in the 'cache' - its the URL displayed in the search results.

Correct?

So - I too have seen it, i have no idea why, but you are definately not alone!

My only 'explanation' is that because Google actually found and spidered the page, and because the Google displayed 'clickable link heading' works - and because it is just the displayed URL that is 'malformed' - therefore the problem must be at Google's end. If the cause of the malformed URL was at the site's end, ie the site served a malformed URL - then Google would have indexed a 404 message... just like you get if you cut & paste the malformed link.....

Best regards

Chris_D

[rfgdxm1]

>The only guess I have is to thwart people that are spidering the SERP, so that they can't always get the right data.

Just spider the clickable links, and this won't be an issue.

[the_nerd]

thanks for your answers - so it's really not in the faq :)

I was just wandering if it had some hidden meaning, maybe something like "this is a spammy site" or "this page is almost identical to other pages" or something of the like

I don't really think it's an error - since they have the correct "clickable" link, they could just as well take this one also just to display the link.

[JuDDer]

I think GoogleGuy recently mentioned that it was to stop sideways scrolling in your browser as some of the url's can be quite long.