Google is ticking me off!

by 30 replies
35
I'm having an issue with the Big G.

Google is not showing my updated site title and description in the search results.

Back in January 2010, I created a website. About 2 days ago, I totally transformed the site; changed the theme, page title, page description, even changed all the content.

In other words, it's a totally different site, but with the same domain.

I have a sitemap set up to notify Google, Bing, and Ask daily about changes to static pages (BTW, it's a WordPress site).

So how long can I expect the wrong info to continue showing in Google and is there something else I can do to speed up the process of getting the right info shown in the Search Engines? :confused:

Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

Ayesha
#search engine optimization #google #ticking
  • Depending on the Authority of your site it can take some time (2 weeks) for these changes to show in the search results. Google gives priority to more popular sites.

    Simply wait and Google will update with the new info.
    • [1] reply
    • Yeah the Goog is nailing me at the second too, made a few changes to a website and they de-indexed me, totally uncool la Goog
  • Make sure you add relevant information to your 404 page so if visitors are directed to your site you have all the new info listed.

    I do this with a site map.

    http://webmarketingforprofit.com.au/badurl

    Quentin
  • Yup, could be that your website is in the sandbox as well. Not sure what the Google policy is in this case. Sandbox = longer waiting period before your website shows in the index.

    A couple of things you can do to try and speed things up:

    1) Have your new website pinged by pingler.
    2) Verify your website with Google in the webmaster central section.

    While you are there;
    3) create an XML sitemap and add it.
    4) Sign up for Google Analitics and place the code on your website.
    5) Sign up for Google Adsense. Google reviews your site before including it into the program. While reviewing the bot indexes the site.

    6) Create a blog on MyBlogLog and place a (decent) article with a link to your website.
    7) Visit a bunch of the 'what is your website worth' websites. They are usually well indexed so that might in getting your website spidered.
    8) Submit your website to all other search engines that you can find.

    Good luck!

    Rembo
    • [2] replies
    • Great response Rembo.

      I was going to suggest the ASense tip because that has resulted in Google bot visiting my page within 24 hours.

    • Has absolutely nothing to do with what the OP was asking about.

      back on track...

      What you are experiencing is completely natural.

      You changed content on your site. Google bots will revisit your site. Eventually all of the google data centers will be updated with the current information.

      It could take a couple of days or a couple of weeks.

      You don't need to do anything, change anything or worry about it. If google crawls your site then your changes will take effect in due time.

      Google has about a gazillion other pages to deal with first. You'll have to wait in line.
      • [1] reply
  • Ayesha,

    Do you have your site set to cache or no-cache?

    If it hasn't updated it yet, one reason could be caching. (You can see it if you search on your site on google and it says "cached" beside it).

    If you set it to "no cache" it is one way to make it update faster (in my experience anyway).

    Amber
    • [ 1 ] Thanks
    • [1] reply
    • I'm not 100% clear about your site upgrade. Was the site upgrade strictly a Wordpress to Wordpress upgrade (meaning you changed the content, title, description, and such) or was it an html to Wordpress change? If the upgrade was html to WP, and no redirects were used, you should jump on that immediately. I'm last person who would defend Google, but they are pretty good about sorting things out, but it can take a l..o..n..g time
      • [2] replies
  • When I make changes to the structure of my blog (category changes, or page changes) I will recreate the sitemap and update the link in the google webmaster tools. That seems to help in getting Google make the changes in their index faster.

    Leslie
    • [ 1 ] Thanks
    • [1] reply
    • Great idea, Leslie. I'll take care of that right now!

      Thanks!

      Ayesha

  • Banned
    [DELETED]
    • [1] reply
    • Palitra,

      I just resubmitted the sitemap like Leslie advised above.

      I'll report back here and let everyone know how this worked out.

      Ayesha

      • [1] reply
  • Another thing I do when I make major changes is do a PR realease. You can use the free one at prlog.org and it works pretty good.

    I've noticed that since this last little change Google make in last week of April things are very different. It screwed with half of my clients websites (dropping them up to 15-20 places in index) and updating has been much slower unless you make it a point to creates some new links to get a fast visit.

    Not fun trying to outguess Google and their crazy algorithums. I'm not even sure they know what will happen when they make these changes. All the websites effected are done strickly whitehat and have good structure, content, and appropriate links.

    Just another day in paradise.
    • [1] reply
    • Another great idea! Thanks, Tex!

      That really SUCKS! I'm sorry to hear that!


      Yes, and the IM journey continues...

      Ayesha
      • [1] reply
  • Google has been acting a little strange lately. Their key word tool is crazy. One day it will show 1000 hits for a keyword and the next day it will show 10 million hits for the same word. I have switched to Yahoo for keyword searches.
    • [1] reply
    • I've noticed this takes longer than it used to. Though if you're site has more authority it does seem to take only a few hours. Give it about 1 week at least.
      • [1] reply
  • Why dont you post your url !

    Its practically impossible to diagnose the problem without it, as people just throwing random ideas out there all perfectly valid of course, but without being able to look at your site properly, we could be throwing ideas out there all day !

    Woc
    • [2] replies
    • I have been having the same problem with a site I have been doing SEO on. It has been over a month since I made the changes to the site and it is still indexing the old website.

      Here is a link to the website: Cosmetic Dentistry San Diego

      I also started another thread on here going into more detail as to what I have done to the site etc: http://www.warriorforum.com/adsense-...xing-help.html

      Thanks!
      • [1] reply
    • Woc,

      I thought about doing that when I started this thread, but I didn't want to be seen as being promotional so I didn't post it.

      All of the ideas thus far are things I didn't think about or know about, so maybe there are other Warriors who needed the same help?

      Either way, I do have some good news...

      FINALLY, Goog has blessed me and has indexed my site correctly!

      Like Rembo said, the tags to stop the cache are working fine and resubmitting my site map probably helped push things along.

      I also had to find a WP plug-in for the robots.txt file because in my Webmaster Tools dashboard there was a 404 error. I installed the plug-in and activated it; then I went back into my Tools dashboard and ran the robots.txt test. Worked like a charm!

      Thanks to all you awesome Warriors who helped me out!

      Ayesha

  • In my opinion, you didn't need to do any of the above.

    The amount of time it took for google to take notice of your changes and for those changes to take effect is about on par with how long it would take if you didn't follow any of those steps.

    Everyone breaks out with their panic mode ninja seo when most of the time they don't even know what they are talking about or have enough experience to know if what they are suggesting is going to make any difference at all.

    I've changed my site titles and other information plenty of times on many sites and it always takes about a week without having to do anything extra for those changes to take effect globally.
    • [1] reply
    • Thanks for the input, Jason, but I was specifically addressing Mariah's problem.

      If you notice, she mentioned she made changes and the changes she made did not get indexed after a month.

      It's good that your changes get noticed after a week...bravo!

      But maybe Mariah needed a little more "panic mode ninja seo" to help her out.

      Never know, there might be other newbie Warriors around here that need this info as well. Just remember, once upon a time you were a newbie yourself.

      Ayesha

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