Problem with google re-indexing

[gerrypolt]

I recently changed my hosting and website software. To be honest I change my whole site except its content.

However, I did make a big mistake. I redirected most of the pages I tranfered, but forgot about the most important re-direct which was my homepage. It has been re-directed now. But It was when my homepage fell off google was when I noticed.

So now its been 2 weeks since the change over and still my home page is not appearing on google. Yet, my sub pages have all improved in ranking since the change over my home page is still not indexed.

If I write a new post it's usually indexed in google in less than 24hrs and usually ranks well. So can some one please help.

Is it a case of just wait and the problem should sort it's self. Or is there anything that have done, or still doing wrong that can be fixed.

Any help would be great.

the URL or my home page: PokerDonk - Best Poker Bonus - Poker News - thePokerDonk.com

thanks
Gerry

[Michael Martinez]

That link is broken.

[gerrypolt]

Should be fine now

[meethere]

submit sitemap
get backlinks

[Michael Martinez]

I don't see anything in a cursory examination of your site that would raise red flags for me. Quite probably simply waiting another week or two will be sufficient. Google seems to have been turbulent for the last few weeks, indicating they have been tweaking their crawl-to-indexing software.

However, in your XML sitemap your root URL is missing a trailing slash. If your Web server is properly configured, it should redirect any visits to that URL to the fully resolved domain name. It might be, though I think it unlikely, this is causing Google some confusion.

Your internal navigation links seem to point to the root URL just fine. I would expect the crawl to find them.

But there is also one other point for possible confusion. Your canonical tag also leaves out the trailing slash.

So I'll hypothesize that IF there is a technical issue, it may be that Google thinks the correct URL lacks a trailing slash and keeps trying to fetch that, but the server keeps redirecting it -- and the canonical resolution logic MAY be ruling out the version of the domain with the trailing slash.

There are a whole lot of "ifs" and guesses bound up in that, but if I had to change anything about the site, I would change the sitemap and the canonical tag to include trailing slashes on the domain's root URL.

[gerrypolt]

Thanks alot Michael

I'll try that and see if it improves anything.

Thanks again
Gerry

I don't see anything in a cursory examination of your site that would raise red flags for me. Quite probably simply waiting another week or two will be sufficient. Google seems to have been turbulent for the last few weeks, indicating they have been tweaking their crawl-to-indexing software.

However, in your XML sitemap your root URL is missing a trailing slash. If your Web server is properly configured, it should redirect any visits to that URL to the fully resolved domain name. It might be, though I think it unlikely, this is causing Google some confusion.

Your internal navigation links seem to point to the root URL just fine. I would expect the crawl to find them.

But there is also one other point for possible confusion. Your canonical tag also leaves out the trailing slash.

So I'll hypothesize that IF there is a technical issue, it may be that Google thinks the correct URL lacks a trailing slash and keeps trying to fetch that, but the server keeps redirecting it -- and the canonical resolution logic MAY be ruling out the version of the domain with the trailing slash.

There are a whole lot of "ifs" and guesses bound up in that, but if I had to change anything about the site, I would change the sitemap and the canonical tag to include trailing slashes on the domain's root URL.

[gerrypolt]

Hi

I have realised Google have indexed my site. The problem is that it has fell off all the terms I was ranking for.

I was wondering if it could do with the change over google is going through.
Because with the new google I am back on page 1 for the terms I was going for.

Any suggestions welcome.

thanks
Gerry

[Michael Martinez]

It's hard to say. With very active sites they appear to be updating their index. However with less active sites they appear to be doing nothing. That kind of stall out often presages a major algorithmic turnover, but it could last 1-3 months.