The "FreshBot" is so weird

It's fresh only for specific queries?!?!?!?!

[Chico_Loco]

On my main query "fm transmitter", my site is number 1 and has the fresh listing i.e "10 DEC 2002" but then for another query the site shows up alright but doesn't have the fresh tag, and is an older page (from 3 weeks ago or so)..

Why would it only be fresh for certain queries and not for others? Can that make any sense.. And it's not that I happen to be temporarily getting another database because it's been a consistency for a few days..

[GoogleGuy]

We only mark pages as fresh if they're really really fresh. If we pull up a different page that's 2-3 weeks old, you wouldn't see any freshness date.

[Slade]

It sounds like the poster's referring to the same URL in both instances. For example:

keyword1 keyword2 = index.html Fresh!
keyword2 keyword3 keyword1 = index.html (not fresh)

Same page, but not always fresh. I'm assuming that they were referring to doing these two queries at the same time(or over and over) and seeing my described result consistently.

If so, it would appear that getting the fresh page depends on typing in just the right search string.

[Chico_Loco]

Thats right, I am referring to the same URL (the homepage)..

Don't get me wrong GoogleGuy, I'm not complaining, but I just though it was weird in that the same URL would be fresh for one query yet not for others ... And this happens consistently for the same URL, so I know its not multiple google servers causing this..

[HuhuFruFru]

yes, I have noticed this too for one of my two sites. One of them has *always* the fresh tag, with the other site it is not so, there are different results with different keywords for that same url, also diffenet results with google.com and google.de/.at. sometimes the fresh tag is there, and then it is gone.

[nmjudy]

I've noticed this also. I use a SSI to display the date on my index page - index.shtml. If you do a site:www.mysite.com mysite, it lists pages for:

www.mysite.com (with a fresh date)
www.mysite.com/index.shtml (with a November 4 date)

Why would Google view these pages as different pages?

[Slade]

mmjudy,

What you're seeing is something entirely different.

I posted some info about this a while back at: [webmasterworld.com...]

Also try searching here for something like: "default page" index redirect