I think the confusion comes from your search criteria.
We as a community has raised the issue that google is doing some strange stuff? As in Site:mysite.com Works in google.com but not in google.co.uk
Try This : site:britishcarforum.com = 38,700
So ive done some checking for you. And you need to think how your members will find your site?
There hardly likely to type into a google search box “site:http://www.britishcarforum +bcforum/ubbthreads.php/ubb/showflat/”
They are how ever more likey to type in “britishcarforum.com” or “britishcarforum”
Now if they do that then your forum links along with all chat links etc will show up in google.
Searching at google.com Britishcarforum.com = 41,100 Go to the last page click on “repeat the search with the omitted results included.” you will see that your “
British Car Forum: Privacy statement Shows up in the first couple of lines."
Britishcarforum As Above but your home page is first place.
britishcarforum+showflat : 1,000
First one for me is “British Car Forum: 1975 MGB For Sale in Classified's”
========= When I do site:wikiwirral.co.uk I only get 1 result. But if I only type in “wikiwirral” in the search I get 13,000
Just a side note that my old domain is still being indexed by Google 2 months in now, and the files have all been deleted too.
Summary Google is indexing your site Basil. Its your search criteria that’s fooling you.
If the searches arnt showing the results you want, then you need to address that with your keywords etc..
If it was that easy we would all be doing it.
I hope that helps ??
BOOM !! Version v7.6.1.1 People who inspire me IsaacME Gizmo
I was trying to explain to him that his forums are there but there is a lot of pages that guests cannot access so theres a ton of "you do not have access to this area" messages; but he doesn't want to take my word for it so I gave up...
There were thousands of chat links too, and they were above the new forum new rankings, so i guess basil mate your just going to have to wait, and it will come good.
BOOM !! Version v7.6.1.1 People who inspire me IsaacME Gizmo
I think the confusion comes from your search criteria.
We as a community has raised the issue that google is doing some strange stuff? As in Site:mysite.com Works in google.com but not in google.co.uk
Try This : site:britishcarforum.com = 38,700
So ive done some checking for you. And you need to think how your members will find your site?
There hardly likely to type into a google search box “site:http://www.britishcarforum +bcforum/ubbthreads.php/ubb/showflat/”
They are how ever more likey to type in “britishcarforum.com” or “britishcarforum”
Now if they do that then your forum links along with all chat links etc will show up in google.
Searching at google.com Britishcarforum.com = 41,100 Go to the last page click on “repeat the search with the omitted results included.” you will see that your “
British Car Forum: Privacy statement Shows up in the first couple of lines."
Britishcarforum As Above but your home page is first place.
britishcarforum+showflat : 1,000
First one for me is “British Car Forum: 1975 MGB For Sale in Classified's”
========= When I do site:wikiwirral.co.uk I only get 1 result. But if I only type in “wikiwirral” in the search I get 13,000
Just a side note that my old domain is still being indexed by Google 2 months in now, and the files have all been deleted too.
Summary Google is indexing your site Basil. Its your search criteria that’s fooling you.
If the searches arnt showing the results you want, then you need to address that with your keywords etc..
If it was that easy we would all be doing it.
I hope that helps ??
Sigh!!! - Ok, I know my "site" is showing up. What is NOT showing up are any (or at least not very many) THREADS from teh new Threads 7 install. Any posts that DO show up are from the OLD threads. If you see anything in the directory www.britishcarforum.com/ubbthreads/anything THAT is from my OLD Threads 6.5 install which now only re-directs to the new forum.
If you can show me more than 3 or 4 fram way back in Jan then I'll believe you. But I am not seeing ANY (well a couple from Jan when I first did my install).
I was trying to explain to him that his forums are there but there is a lot of pages that guests cannot access so theres a ton of "you do not have access to this area" messages; but he doesn't want to take my word for it so I gave up...
Gizmo, it's not that I don't want to take your word for anything. Let me try one more time - I KNOW that many links from my overall SITE are showing up. What are NOT showing up are any (or not very many) actual THREADS from my NEW Threads install (Threads 7). I guess I am not being clear in communicating this problem. Let me try this once more: I am not seeing any links show up in Google that are from actual threads from my NEW install, which has been online since December (except maybe 3 or 4 from way back in January).
(in the bcforum directory and with "showflat" in the URL)
So now do you understand what the problem is? It is not that there are NO links to my site in Google, it is that there are no NEW THREADS (key word - new) showing up in google. I have 29787 topics on my forum, but they are NOT being indexed since I moved to Threads 7. With Threads 6.5 they were indexed. Now they are NOT and the fact is, I used to get dozens of new members every day from Google searches, but now I am lucky if I get 2 or 3 in a week!
So, if you want to convice me that I'm wrong, then do a Google Search and then post more than 3 links here are from the search results which point to actual threads in my new install. They would look like this:
I'm going to prove you wrong by doing a simple test? I'm proving you wrong in a helpful way, meaning if you do the tests you will get the same results.
Your last gripe seems to be that anything pre January would not show up?
Your Forums British Car Forum » Forums » British Automobiles » Jaguar Topic : Unloading E-type torsion bars Date : 12th December 2006
Google search "Unloading E-type torsion bars"
Searching with ( "" ) on that topic and not individual words.
British Car Forum » Forums » British Automobiles » Jaguar Topic : "Paint question XK150" Date of that post is 01/27/01 12:20 AM by Basil
That is showing up in google and that's on your last page, and there all pointing to THREADS v7
We are at there mercy we can only do so much, you are being listed basil, but it will take time for the new links to climb through. As ive mentioned i still have results from my old domain name in google and they have been deleted from the server, but google lists them.
I guess what's happening is either the old links that you have posted on other site are more popular with google at the moment, but in time your forum posts will climb.
I did find it amazing on one search to see this thread above alot of other links lol...
As frustrating as it is to wait, we are all in the same boat.
p.s. You didnt say if i got a prize for finding anything older than Jan
Can you find ANY such posts newer than January (when I did my Threads 7 Install) is Google? I'll be thrilled if you can, but I bet you can't.
Regards, a Frustrated Basil
Enjoying a challenge >> off i go to do a google on some of your newer threads
Hope i'm not wrong
I hope you're not wrong also. I would LOVE to be shown that NEW threads (since Jan 07) are being indexed.
Mark, you mentioned doing this search:
Quote
britishcarforum+showflat : 1,000
First one for me is “British Car Forum: 1975 MGB For Sale in Classified's”
Ok, but LOOK AT THE DIRECTORY that first thread is in - it is in www.britishcarforum.com/ubbthreads - THAT IS MY OLD Threads dir from my old Threads 6.5 which I have not had since December 06. If you click that link it will re-direct you to the corresponding thread in the new install - but no new threads from the new install since I did the change will show up, these would be in www.britishcarforum.com/bcforum/....
See how many (newer than Jan) threads you can find that are in my new threads dir www.britishcarforum/bcforum and are actual THREADS (e.g., with showflat in the URL)
Mark, you just proved my point, sir!! Look at the URL - that is pointing to "postlist". Click on the link - it only takes you to the list of threads NOT to a thread itself. That is what I have been saying - the THREADS themselves are not being indexed (they used to be with 6.5). Look at the URL you posted - does it say "showflat" in it? No, it does not, it says "postlist". Click on that link when you do that Google search. Does it take you to the thread, or just to a list of threads? Answer - it does not take you to a thread, it only takes you to a list of threads. That is what I have been TRYING to say - Google used to index every one of my actual threads, but now it goes NO DEEPER than the list of threads - NONE of my actual threads since I moved to Thread 7 are being indexed. Are you getting what I'm trying to tell you yet?
Basil
Conclusion: My Threads themselves are no longer being indexed. To prove me wrong, post more than one THREAD that is from my NEW Threads 7 install. To be sure it is a thread and is in my new install, it must be in the directory www.britishcarforum.com/bcforum and have showflat in the URL.
No my mind is NOT at rest because what you are showing me are links to thread titles - in postlist. Show me in Google that any actual Threads content is being indexed. With my OLD Threads install, the actual Threads were being indexed. But what you are showing me is that the titles in postlist are being indexed. I already know that! What is NOT being indexed is the content of the threads themselves BUT THEY USED TO BE!!! That is a huge difference! In your previous example, you posted results from a search that pointed ONLY to a list of threads, to to an actual thread itself.
NONE OF THE ACTUAL THREADS IN MY NEW INSTALL ARE BEING INDEXED AND NONE OF THE URLS THAT POINT TO THE THREAD ITSELF IN MY NEW INSTALL ARE IN GOOGLE. You still have not proven me wrong. In my Old 6.5, when I did a Google seach, the threads themselves would show up such that if I clicked on a link in the Google search, it would take me to the actual thread...that IS NOT happening any longer.
I think somehow I am not being clear in what the problem is.
Google takes time to index post, i'm guessing but once it has your Topic titles then it will go one level deeper.
I hope you are right and that eventually Google will start indexing the actual threads, but so far it has not indexed ANY actual threads since I installed Threads 7 - none. (maybe one). But at least now you understand what I have been trying to say - that Google is not indexing my threads - it is going no deeper than the postlist. I will keep watching and if I eventually start seeing threads indexed I will be very happy, but so far that has not happened.
Ok, this is from back in Feb. Then do a search (with quotes) for "Is there a suspension fluid I can buy over the counter"
How many results do you get? Answer: none! The fact that it is working on THIS site doesn't help me. It is NOT working on My site and that is the problem I am trying to figure out. WHY! If it works here but not there, then it must be something in the way my site is configured compared to this site, or maybe my .htaccess or robots.txt file? I have no idea WHY it is a problem, I only know that it IS a problem and one that I MUST solve!
One topic! Ok, thanks for trying. I will wait one moth from THIS post and then lets see if any more besides this are indexed. With over 29,000 threads, there should be more than ONE or TWO that are indexed. But I will give it MORE time and maybe it will start indexing. Right now it is NOT (and I already knew there were one or two). If after a month from now there are not more Threads Indexed, then I know something is wrong with my site (or server)?
And by the way, that one example you posted is one in the non-spider friendly formate (I briefly had my threads in non-spider friendly mode as an experiment). Lets see what things look like in a month.
3 days ago? 22nd April 2007 - Google Cache date You can see the cache date in the green URL in the images. That may be one example but you did ask for one?
From what i can see 91 pages have been indexed on the 21st April, now that would make sense to me if you have been changing settings. Google has effectivley been Reset.
site:http://www.britishcarforum.com/bcforum is what I search, I recieve 35.2k pages; not one is from your old forum; a lot are your classifieds and some are your chat, and some other misc things, but there is forum data within...
Again, I am NOT looking at your old install's directory, I AM looking at the NEW install directory.
It's also good to note that google wont' just keep displaying items, after it hits a page limit it'll show the end of a search; i'd love to test it more BUT every time I go clicking new pages it flags me as abusing their servers and i get banned for an hour.
BTW, not all of the data I saw in google was SE friendly URLs, so your searching bcforum/ubbthreads.php/ubb won't show everything, try just searching bcforum like I posted above (be sure it's not filtering content otherwise it'll die well before showing all links).
In any case, no matter what I tell you I'm going to hear that I'm stupid and wrong, hence my refusal to post on this thread.
3 days ago? 22nd April 2007 - Google Cache date You can see the cache date in the green URL in the images. That may be one example but you did ask for one?
From what i can see 91 pages have been indexed on the 21st April, now that would make sense to me if you have been changing settings. Google has effectivley been Reset.
Again : your site is being indexed, any changes you make to day can effect the results 20~30 days down the line.
Ive helped as much as i want to now, hopefully in a month you will be jumping for joy.
Actually, I had my site in non-spider mode only briefly way back in Jan, so in fact I guess I can't explain that thread you posted since on that date since it would have been in spider-friendly mode. As for your help - thanks, I really do appreciate it.
I'm not trying to argue anything here or be difficult with anyone but the fact is, Google is not indexing my THREADS the way I had hoped and the result is VERY obvious. I have been running my site for seven years now and I know what kind of traffic I had been getting from Google searches and that has dropped to almost nothing since January. I will give it another month and then revisit this thread. If I still have little or no actual THREADS indexed then perhaps someone can hel me figure out why. If you are correct and I have lots more threads indexed, then you are correct that I will jump for joy. I honestly hope you are right.
Gizmo, I never ever said you were stupid - please don't put those words in my mouth. In the first place, I don’t talk to anyone like that, especially someone who I know is trying to help me – and I know that you are. But at the same time, I am pretty sure that I'm not stupid either (BSEE, MS Computer Science, MBa). I'm a 53 year old Senior Analyst who has been working on computers since they used vacuum tubes and magnetic ferrite core memory. I think the problem is simply that I am not effectively communicating my concern here. Yes, I know that SOME things in my new install directory are being indexed, such as post lists, classifieds, etc. But what is NOT being indexed (or not very much at least) are my actual Threads (yes I know that one or two are there – but that’s it). For example, if you do a Google on THIS site like this:
[site:https://www.ubbcentral.com +ubb/showflat] (without the brackets) this is a legitimate Google search that looks for any URLs that are in https://www.ubbcentral.com site and which contain “ubb/showflat” in the URL, which would ONLY happen for threads that are in the spider-friendly mode. So, when you do that Google search for THIS site you get over 1200 returns. But do the same thing for my forum like this: site:http://www.britishcarforum.com +ubb/showflat and it only returns about 2 links (or four if you show those omitted). If there were more than those few in Google, that search should show them just as it does for THIS site. My site IS in spider friendly mode and has been except for a very brief period back in January. Doing a search for www.britishcarforum.com/bcforum will show all sorts of links, that is a fact - but these are all (or mostly) things other than threads themselves. Even Rick agrees that there is something fishy going on with my site and Google (see his reply in this thread a few pages back).
Ok, so all that said, I am convinced that Google is not indexing my THREADS like it should be. Why this is happening I have no idea, which is driving me crazy. Maybe it is just that I am not being patient enough since it has only been about 4 months since the change to the new threads. I have heard that Google recently changed their algorithms, so maybe it is just going to take longer than I expected – time will tell. So, rather than beat a dead horse, I will cool my jets for another month and then see how many actual threads are shown from the new install. If there are significantly more than the one or two that show up now, I will be VERY happy. But if there are still only one or two as currently show up, then I will be convinced beyond any doubt that something is wrong with my site. I don’t think it it a problem with Threads 7 because lots of threads show up for this site. I am thinking it is something in the way I have my pages configured, or maybe screwed up Meta Tags, or .htaccess or robots.txt problem, or maybe even something in my server config. But like I said, I will drop the discussion for now and give it another month then reassess. Fair enough?
Cheers, Basil
PS: In the meantime, if I figure out a solution I will certainly post it here.
Well I certainly don't wish to step on anyone's toes here but is it possible that Google does not index your site on purpose ? I've heard that they can block sites based on their own discretion. Is there a way to find out from Google themselves if you're not being indexed on purpose or if they get errors from your site so they don't index it? Not saying this is the cause, just curious if it's possible to find out for sure directly from Google.
NT, I've heard about them blockin sites, but generally by violating their policies (such as search engine spamming like VW and BMW have done in the past)
You have a very odd redirect for your main page. It's using a javascript onload to redirect to the forums, and I'm not entirely sure that search engines will always read/obey the redirect.
You should sign up for the google webmaster tools to see if there is any info on errors, crawl rate, last successful crawl, etc.
AFAIK a lot of engines will not use a javascript redirect, they'll die on the page.
For a redirect, you could use a 302 redirect with .htaccess files, or the redirectors which came with the UBB.T7 importer.
Myself I have a 302 redirect in the old directory (/ubb/) forwarding all traffic to our new directory (/forum/) then I have the redirectors sitting in the new directory.
There are two redirect codes that the webserver can serve, 301 and 302; some will say 301 is the way to go; others will say the opposing, others like me say they work well in conjunction with eachother if you're *just now* redirecting content that's already in engines.
If you where wanting to create a redirect, open up your .htaccess file on the server (generally in your web root), if you have none then you can create a new one (make sure your FTP client can read "hidden" files, hidden files in unix/linux are prefixed with a ".").
