URL showing as header error message on Google

my url mixed up with other site on Google

[parischantelle]

About a month ago Where my site showed on google there was a header error message for another site, a nursing site that has nothing to do with my site which is a floral design school.This nursing site has been not operating for a year.Somehow all my metatags went on that site.
Both of us had the same host at the time and there must have been a glitch and when the google bot went around it picked up this header error as my site.The nursing site now shows up as a 404 error.
It has had disastrous results for my business
Google has my site listed again but when you type in my url in google this header error comes up still.I had hoped the new crawl would have fixed this up and removed this nursing site with the 404 error as it still mixed up with links to my site on google.
I have written to google several times,any suggestions on what I can do

[jdMorgan]

parischantelle,

Welcome to WebmasterWorld! Or, Bienvenue a WebmasterWorld, if that's more appropriate.

You might want to use the Server Header checker [webmasterworld.com] here on this site to check your headers to see
if they are correct.

You might also wish to post the URL for the site in question in your profile so members here can
see what you are talking about. This could be a DNS mix-up, a virtual hosting mixup, or a
redirection error, as well as possibly a GoogleBot error. Or, it could be something else...

Jim

[Jane_Doe]

A web designer on another list I'm on wrote to the list about exactly the same problem with a site in the Google index.

The designer's URL showed up in Google mixed in with pages from an architects firms URL.

For pages that should have been:

www.webDesignerURL.com
www.architectsURL.com/aboutUsArchitects.html

They showed up in the last Google index as:

www.webDesignerURL.com/aboutUsArchitects.html

Since no pages like the one above really exists, when you click on the link above it returns a 404.

When you enter the architect firm name in Google, it returns the web designers URL. The real architect firm's URL doesn't appear to be listed in Google at all.

Parischantelle - Check your stickymail soon. I'll send you the actual URL for the web designer.

[parischantelle]

Thank you
I have put my url in my profile so you can see what I am talking about
It is on google when you type in my url in their search box and yahoo in their seach box that this triage header error box comes up.
My site is under the header error message on Yahoo
On google you need to go to one if the links below Sites that contain the words Floral Art School of Australia to get on
I thought this latest crawl might have gotten rid of this error message
I have emailed google and Yahoo again.
Surely they do not want a 404 messages coming up on a site that is not there and a nursing site that has nothing to do with the sites under the topic "floral school" on google
Are there any suggestions what else I can do
Thank you for your input
parischantelle

[jdMorgan]

parischantelle,

I tried the searches you suggest, and I cannot get the site to break. I'm in the US - maybe there's
a difference??? Either that, or I'm not following your directions properly.

Please stickymail me one of the "broken" URLs so I can look at it.

Or maybe (I hope) the problem resolved itself, and that's why I can't find it...

Jim

[Jane_Doe]

When I entered her URL into the search box at www.google.com, the results looked like this:

HTTP Host Header error
HTTP Host Header error. If you can see this page, it means you are
using an old version of your browser eg Netscape Navigator 1.x ...
Description: Resources for Triage Nurses and information for lay people. Home of the Department of Human Services...
Category: Health > Nursing > Specialties > Emergency

If you enter the main keywords from her site (not the URL) into Google, a nursing triage site comes up first and her site is second.

[jdMorgan]

Jane_Doe,

Well, I didn't get that result - very strange. Hopefully, you can check out the WHOIS on whatever
URL the nursing site shows and compare DNS to that for her site. Somehow, somewhere, there is
likely to be a "common denominator" - a server, ISP, Domain Name Service provider - something or
some place where "the signals got crossed."

It's also possible that this phenomenon is related to the Google update in progress.

I love a good mystery, but it looks like I'll have to sit this one out since I can't see the
evidence. :(

Jim

[Jane_Doe]

I checked the links for the floral design site using a link popularity checker and checked the ranking for the site using the URL keywords in Vivisimo.

The floral site comes up #1 in the other major search engines in Vivisimo using the main keywords from the URL. It's only number #2, with the triage site first, at BBC which I think is also the only other search engine Vivisimo lists that uses straight Google results.

The URL for the floral shop comes up fine in Alltheweb and the backward links looks fine in there. In Alltheweb there are mostly craft, education and and flower links - the kind you'd expect for a floral school. In Google though, there are lots of links showing for buses, travel and nursing sites that aren't showing in Alltheweb--weird links for a floral design school. Plus the links do not appear to be correct - the backward links Google lists do not seem to match up to the actual links for the site.

Since the site looks fine using the address bar in my browser and it looks okay in Alltheweb and Vivisimo, my guess would be that its something buggy with Google. The web design site I mentioned earlier also only had weird results in Google and looked okay in the other major search engines.

[jdMorgan]

Jane_Doe,

Very strange... Are you in the US, too? I'm still trying to figure out why I don't see this, even
though I followed the methods you and parischantelle described...

Jim

[Jane_Doe]

I'm in Northern Califoria.

Try typing the keywords in her URL (including the country code) in the search box at www.vivisimo.com and then check the BBC SERPs versus the SERPS for the other SEs.

[parischantelle]

Thank you for your help
About a month ago
I noticed I wasnt getting many emails,that is when I discovered that where my floral school site was on google was replaced with a triage header error message for nurses,As both triage and my site were both hosted by the same host company,and the triage site had not been operarating for over a year I asked the host to remove the DNS which they did.Triage was then just showing as a 404 message
A couple of weeks ago Google indexed my site again so and the triage error message was further down the page. The triage message was a 404 massage.I started to get a lot of enquiries and enrollments again and business improved.Since google has done its new spidering the triage is coming up again with the message if you cannot see this etc with all those links showing.The buses are for schools as my meta tags had schools in it, it is picking up them,I am getting hardly any emails again and business is very slow.I have hundeds of links to my site What can I do to have this triage site removed from Google?
Parischantelle
How can I get google to remove this Triage header eerror site

nery slowI have honders of links

[jdMorgan]

OK, it turns out maybe I have come up with something useful... I was finally able to see one (1)
listing from this site ahead of yours in the Yahoo! search results - obviously not the same degree
of trouble you are having, but at least I was able to get the URL this time!

Here are some facts:

Google is almost surely picking up that triage link from its Google Directory, because it does
appear there.
The Google Directory data comes from the Open Directory Project (dmoz.org).
The triage site is still listed in the ODP, so Google's directory is getting it from there.
The triage site returns an unresolved host error because it is no longer in the DNS system.

So, I'd recommend the following:

Go to the Open Directory category where this site is listed, click on the "editor" link at the
bottom of the page, and ask that the site be removed from the ODP because it no longer resolves
and it is causing you major problems with Google listings. Ask that they check the situation as
soon as possible. They will be able to verify that the link is dead. The ODP editors are all
volunteers, so this may take awhile.

You might also want to contact Google, and tell them the same thing. I'm not sure if they can do
anything about their copy of the Open Directory, but you could ask them to check the link and
seeing that it is dead, please remove it from their search index.

Track the situation with both ODP and Google Directory. If ODP removes the site quickly, then
you'll be OK. If not, then Google may pick it up again the next time they take an ODP feed. However,
now that that domain no longer resolves, Google should detect it and drop it from their index. I
say "should" because their spider does check these things, but there are obviously timing issues
involved here, and we don't know the delays involved in various steps of building the Google index.

You may wish to investigate the options of paid listings on other search engines which are popular
in your region - in order to reduce your dependence on Google. As Google's market share expands,
the slightest problem can mean catastrophe for a small business.

Good luck! And let me know if anything here is not clear.

Jim

[parischantelle]

Thank you Jim and Jane for all your help
I have previously emailed the open directory,google and yahoo
expaining the situation.
I have emailed yahoo and google today and will email the open directory again.For a week before the spidering I was getting about 10 inquiries a day ,now it is about 2. I am on all the paid major search engines and a lot of pay for click programs My site now is at least indexed by google, before 2 weeks ago my site was not even showing on the google index only the triage error where my site used to be and the other sites I was linked to when this error message appeared.A lot of places where my site is linked to must be showing as an error message causing hardly any inquiries.Any other suggestions are appreciated .

[Jane_Doe]

Jim suggestions sounds good. I also had mixed results this morning - sometimes your listing looked okay on Google/BBC and sometimes the triage site showed up first.

You might also try having the triage page removed from the Google index. Google has instructions how to immediately remove a page from it index in it webmaster tips section. However, the request has to be from the site's webmaster and a metatag has to be added to the site.

Given the circumstances, perhaps your web hosting company could help you with this or they could contact the last webmaster for the triage site to help you out.

Since your listing looks okay in Alltheweb and it's only an intermitant problem on Google, it sure does seem like it something buggy on Google. It's too bad you can't get anyone from there to take a look at it. Maybe if you sent them a hard copy letter through the mail that would help.

[parischantelle]

Thank you Jane
You have some good suggestions
I did contact the webmaster on triage and he said he did not have any meta tags as the site has not been operating for over a year.
I will write google a letter.
all the best to you
parischantelle

[Jane_Doe]

I realize there isn't really a site there anymore, but if the triage folks still own the domain name perhaps your web hosting company would let them set up a bare bones HTML page with metatags required by Google for the sole purpose of getting the URL deleted from the index. It would only have to be up a few days--it could be taken down after the request gets processed by Google for deletion of the URL from the index. Just a thought.

Good luck.

[parischantelle]

Thank you Jane
Perhaps I could contact the host and ask them to remove the triage site altogether,it is due to expire in November.Is that a good idea ?

Paris chantelle

[parischantelle]

Everything seems fine now .
It must have been corrected with the last google spider update
All the best to all of you
Thank you very much for all your help
parischantelle

[jdMorgan]

Glad to hear it!

Best,
Jim

[Jane_Doe]

Interesting, because it still looked off in the www2 and www3 versions of the new Google index during the last dance. So glad to hear everything is okay now.

Jane