Domain change causing index drop out?

Changed domains, now my site has been dropped from Live

[jclobes]

About two weeks ago I transitioned domains using 301's (which seem to be configured properly) and now I only have 4 pages left in Live. No other engines have dropped the site, in fact I'm seeing ranking increases in GGL & YH. Does Live usually drop sites after a domain change, or did it recently update its algo or something? Any additional insight would be appreciated.

Thx!

[flanok]

Hi,
If you read previous posts you will see that many site owners have been having 301 problems for months now.
Marl

[jclobes]

Thanks flanok, I appologize if it souded like I didn't do my research - I have read those posts, but was hoping to open a new dialog regarding the issue, as I am new to the game. :-)

I've also read that MSN may not be indexing new pages right now (which my pages may be classify as, now that they have been moved), or that it takes quite a while to get pages re-indexed these days...have you heard the same? If so, do you have any suggestions on the best way to get pages re-indexed? I've read that submitting each URL individually might expedite the process, but that is about it...

[pageoneresults]

If you read previous posts you will see that many site owners have been having 301 problems for months now.

flanok, can you provide links to those specific topics here at WebmasterWorld? I'd like to see which ones you are referring to. Thanks.

[flanok]

To be honest, i didn't remeber specifically the post titles as such, as I just read every post, looking for hints and answers.

Here are some other posts that mention 301s
[webmasterworld.com...]
[webmasterworld.com...]
[webmasterworld.com...]
[webmasterworld.com...]
[webmasterworld.com...]

my site gradually lost pages after I actioned some 301s and rewrites until eventually disapeared totaly.
(I thought it was down to not relisting new pages. (take away the old, but not allow the new back in)
I have been told by MSNDude that that was not the problem in my case, it does seem strange though, that it has happened with other websites.
I look on oher forums too, and again lots of website owners losing their sites shortly after 301 changes.

Mark

[jclobes]

Thanks for the references, Flanok…much appreciated!

It appears, as you said, it is MSN's inability to handle 301's correctly that has caused the site to drop from their index. I did see that SEO2007123 was able to successfully re-index his client's site by contacting MSN directly, does anyone know if he used the standard channels to contact them, or if it was through the forum? We do not participate in any black-hat SEO or even a link exchange program, so I’m confident the site will be re-indexed if I can get a hold of them (I’ve already re-submitted the domain, but apparently that can take quite a while as well).

In terms of dealing w/MSN in the future, I haven’t heard anything about the use of 302 redirects. It sounds like MSN drops the original pages after redirection b/c they’re considered outdated and due to MSN’s inability to quickly index new pages, the site is lost form the index entirely for quite some time. I wonder if a 302 redirect would work for anyone choosing to change domains or IPs? Obviously 302s are less than desirably for GGL & YH, but perhaps there’s a way to use 302 redirects for MSN only by targeting the MSNBot user agent in the .htaccess file? …just a thought.