Googlebot visits but I am still not listed

not indexed

[Samiam]

Around mid-May I changed my host for my site and the way my shopping cart system was set-up. In the middle of this my site was down for maybe 10 hours, which must have been when googlebot came for a visit. Since June my site has showed a grey page rank on the Google toolbar. Googlebot keeps visiting, in fact it is on my site today, and I sometimes pop in and out of the SERP for my keywords. On August 1st my site appeared in its old position with a fresh date. I was just wondering if this normal behavior from Google?

Thanks.

[Nick_W]

Welcome to WebmasterWorld Samian!

Could there be any other reason? Excessive cross linking or 'dodgy' SEO practices?

Nick

[Samiam]

Thanks for the fast reply and the welcome! I do not believe I have excessive cross linking, if I understand the term correctly. The only in-site links I use are to go further into my site to get to my products. I am not familiar enough with SEO to know how to do something ‘dodgy’, on purpose at least.

Thanks.

[Nick_W]

Hmmmm... I'm stumped.

Grey toolbar either means you're not in it or have been penalized?

There are some Google heavy weights that hang out here so check back in a while and see what they have to add...

Nick

[jdMorgan]

Samiam,

Welcome to WebmasterWorld!

It sounds like you got dropped when your site was down.

If you are popping in and out of the SERPs, you will likely be back after the next index.

For those about to move a site, don't take the old one down before getting the new one up, and
getting it fully-indexed in all search engines that are important for your site's purposes! Avoid
possible duplicate-content problems by using robots.txt and 301-redirects.

There are many threads on cross-linking, robots.txt, and 301 permanent redirects here on
WebmasterWorld - use the "site search" feature above.

Grey toolbar PR means Google has not assigned a PR to your page. White tool bar means it has
assigned a page rank of zero to your page. Grey means you're unknown. White means you have been
found guilty of something dodgy (possibly wrongfully).

Hope this helps,
Jim

[Nick_W]

If he missed the spidering mid may, wouldn't he almost have to be back in it by now?

Not doubting you, your explanation is really the only likely answer, but it's a bit weird eh?

Nick

[Samiam]

Thanks for the info and the welcome, I did not take down my old website, my server had problems and I did not know until the next day. I hope I pop back in for good soon. :) Thank you both for taking the time to answer my question.

Thanks,
Sam

[yankee]

I have a site which gets spidered every month and is awarded a big fat PR 0 despite having many quality links. I added this site into Link Topics over two years ago. Even though I removed the links to the other Link Topics sites over a year ago I still have PR 0. So I am no longer linking to bad neighborhoods, but still get penalized.
Geez Google, drop the penalty already. Many people joined LinkTopics for the traffic too.

[jdMorgan]

Samiam,

It is odd that it should take so long to get your new site indexed. This may be a "hangover" from
the original server being down, or it might have to do with stale DNS at Google, or with the timing
of any changes in external links point to your site. Or maybe something else - there are many
variables.

However, the fact that you are being spidered, and that you are popping in and out of the SERPs
means that you will likely be back in the index soon.

yankee,

I hope your PR0 issue gets straightened out. Altavista banned me several years ago, and I never
did figure out why. It took about 8 months to get back in, but by then it didn't matter anymore,
since referals from other engines more than made up for the loss on AV.

Jim