Google Crawling my site

[timhackett]

I recently repolaced my companies web page with a new one I created (about a week ago) and I have found that Google has either not found it yet or may have found some parts of it. When I go to my pages Cache on Google I get some of what is left of the old page. I hide this in the main directory with no links, do I need to remove this altogether or is there something else I should be doing.

I have created a sitemap to help the googlebot.

I also read about relative links on this site and wondered if this would be part of my problem as my links, created by Dreamweaver, are almost all relative.

Thanks
Tim

[stapel]

How did you go about "replacing" the old pages? Did you design a new site at a new domain name? Or did you just do some new pages with new names at the same site?

Have you tried doing a "redirect" in your .htaccess from the pages currently indexed to their replacement pages (or best approximations thereto)?

Eliz.

[timhackett]

Hi Eliz.

I am unsure exactly what you mean, however I'll explain what I have done.

Our site was originally designed by someone else. I came to the company (I have been dabbling in www since it can to Australia) and I created a page in a new directory within the existing page (with no links) ie. New_Web_Site folder. I then moved the existing page to a directory (Old_Web_Site) and put the new one in place in the main directory <snip> I created a sitemap which Google say they have looked at and they say they cached my site since it was changed but still have the old (now half working one) instead of the new page.

I have an index page with quick links to a home page, contacts and search page (which re-directs if no links are clicked). I also need to know have I done something wrong doing this?

Thanks again Eliz.
Tim

[edited by: mack at 11:24 am (utc) on Jan. 10, 2006]
[edit reason] URL removed [/edit]

[timhackett]

I just wanted to add:

I checked what Google have of my site and It looks like they have all the old page except the Home and Index and Search files linked which are all related to the site index. They don't show anything else and the cache shows the old index.

[stapel]

So you took the old web site, put it in a folder, and replaced the old pages with a new site at the same domain name...?

Have you replaced old pages with new pages with the old names? For instance, if you replaced the old "home.htm" page with a new "index.htm" page, you might not show up in the search engines for a while, since they aren't looking for "index.htm". But if you replaced the old "home.htm" with a new "home.htm", then the search engines will do the regular crawl and archive the new versions of what, to them, are the same pages.

On the other hand, if you did replace the old "home.htm" with a new "index.htm", do a "redirect" in your .htaccess file so that calls to "home.htm" get sent to "index.htm", and you should remain in the search engines at the same ranking.

Eliz.

[timhackett]

Eliz.

I did replace the "Index" with an "Index", but I added a "Home" which is actually the main page, the index just redirects and offers basic links to the home, contacts and search pages.

Should I do away with the current "index" and make the current "home" the new "index"?

I thought I read somewhere on this site that the search engines don't like to be re-directed unless the entry page has some useful function. Is this right?

Thanks again
Tim

[stapel]

To be honest, I don't know the in's and out's of redirection and its impact on search engines, other than that I'm pretty sure being redirected to another location (especially within the same site, and to a page with useful content) is going to be better that getting a 404 error and thus disappearing. The redirection should serve to "cover" you while you advise your referring sites to update their links to you.

If I may ask, why did you change the names of the basic pages? If the entry-way page of the site was "home.htm", why change to "index.htm"?

In any case, since the old page-name is still valid, you should remain in the search engines. In time (be patient!), the new page should creep above the old one.

Eliz.