Google sees redirect when there isn't any?
-
I've posted a question previously regarding the very strange changes in our search positions here http://www.seomoz.org/q/different-pages-ranking-for-search-terms-often-irrelevant
New strange thing I've noticed - and very disturbing thing - seems like Google has somehow glued two pages together. Or, in other words, looks like Google sees a 301 redirect from one page to another.
This, actually, happened to several pages, I'll illustrate it with our Flash templates page.
URL: http://www.templatemonster.com/flash-templates.php
Has been #3 for 'Flash templates' in Google.Reasons why it looks like redirect:
Reason #1
Now this http://www.templatemonster.com/logo-templates.php page is ranking instead of http://www.templatemonster.com/flash-templates.php
Also, http://www.templatemonster.com/flash-templates.php is not in the index.
That what would typically happen if you had 301 from Flash templates to logo templates page.Reason #2
If you search for cache:http://www.templatemonster.com/flash-templates.php Google will give the cahced version of http://www.templatemonster.com/logo-templates.php!!!
If you search for info:www.templatemonster.com/flash-templates.php you again get info on http://www.templatemonster.com/logo-templates.php instead!Reason #3
In Google Webmaster Tools when I look for the external links to http://www.templatemonster.com/logo-templates.php I see all the links from different sites, which actually point to http://www.templatemonster.com/flash-templates.php listed as "Via this intermediate link: http://www.templatemonster.com/flash-templates.php" As I understand Google makes this "via intermediate link" when there's a redirect? That way, currently Google thinks that all the external links we have for Flash templates are actually pointing to Logo templates?The point is we NEVER had any kind of redirect from http://www.templatemonster.com/flash-templates.php to http://www.templatemonster.com/logo-templates.php
I've seen several similar situations on Google Help forums but they were never resolved.
So, I wonder if anybody can explain how that could have happened, and what can be done to solve that problem?
-
Funny, we had that self-pointing canonical tag since July 8th - just removed it less than a day ago as we thought it might be harmful. So, that means that it didn't help as it was there all the time.
-
It is perfectly standard for the "real" page to show a canonical to itself. For example, look at the code for this Q&A question. It has a canonical tag pointing to itself.
A loop would be created only if you made an error. If you set the canonical for Page A as B, then you set the canonical for Page B as A, then you would have created a loop which should be fixed. If you designate the canonical for Page A as B, and the canonical for Page B as B, that would be perfectly valid.
In summary, yes I am suggesting that all pages involving /flash-templates.php including the page itself should use the canonical tag. At the very least add it to both the flash-templates.php page and the logo-templates.php page, each pointing to themselves.
-
Actually, we do use canonical on pages with parameters such as this one:
http://www.templatemonster.com/flash-templates.php?aff=affiliate
or this
http://www.templatemonster.com/flash-templates.php?from=2&type=9Do you suggest that we place canonical on the page itself, won't it create some kind of infinite loop? If http://www.templatemonster.com/flash-templates.php refers to itself as canonical?
-
I noticed you still have not added the canonical tag to your pages. If you do not wish to add them to all the pages in your site would you consider at least adding it to a couple of your affected pages to see if there is any impact?
You wont notice any difference until the pages are crawled again, but if you don't make any change at all this issue may remain.
I would also suggest your site requires a higher level of security then most e-commerce sites. Your audience and customers are often developers with various levels of experience. Any unhappy customer or developer will often have at least some knowledge related to website security, not to mention your competitors.
If you use a solid backup system you can compare the files from your current site with the files from a backup taken in June to see if you have any infected files.
-
Can you determine whether this is happening to any other pages right now?
Whenever we see this type of thing, we look at the development schedule to see which dev changes have recently been implemented. As everyone else has noted, I don't see anything out of place either but sometimes it's easier to look at specific recent dev changes.
Has the page been crawled since last cache? If not, maybe it would be a good idea to 'help' google crawl it a little more quickly to see if things get resolved.
-
A few other points.
site:templatemonster.com/flash-templates.php
Doesn't show anything, (except the few items which you have blocked by robots.txt, so that is normal) which leads me to believe you had an issue as Ryan said on July 19th. Luckily they kept you in the results for "Flash templates" even with a different page.
I would also advise to add descriptions to all pages at the same time you are adding canonicals. Why does the 'Problem' page flash-templates.php not have a description tag? Perhaps a coding issue that is causing this issue as well?
-
I have looked at your page header codes, anchor links, html code on both pages along with the robots.txt for your site. There is no apparent reason for this issue.
The google cache URL for your logo-templates page is: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://www.templatemonster.com/flash-templates.php
Your Google cache is clearly displaying the wrong page as it appeared on July 19th.
You have two options. You can do nothing and see if the issue resolves itself after the next Google update. Another choice, which I would recommend, is to add the canonical tag to all your pages. The canonical tag is helpful for numerous reasons. I add the tag to every page. That tag should clear up any confusion that occurred.
-
P.S. have you tried using the Fetch as Googlebot tool in WMT?
-
So you are certain that you never had any type of redirect or canonical tag that might account for this. Hmmm, this looks weird.
After looking at this issue and your previous question, I'm stumped. I don't see any redirects, canonicals, etc that could cause this. My best suggestion is to try to get the ear of someone at Google (maybe try Matt Cutts?).
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Incorrect Spelling Indexed In Meta Info - Can't Change It
Hi,It would be great if a member of the community could help me to resolve this issue.Google is indexing an incorrect spelling on of our key pages and we can't identify the reason why.- The page in question: https://newbridgesilverware.com/jewelleryAs you can see from the attached image, the Meta Title is rendered to contain the keyword "jewelry" (the American spelling.) We want this to read as "jewellery" - the British-English spelling. Yet in the page source the word is given in the meta title as "jewellery". Nowhere in the page source or on the page itself does the American spelling appear - yet Google still renders it in the Meta Title.Can anyone identify why this is happening and offer any possible solutions?Much appreciatedDhqJp
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Johnny_AppleSeed1 -
Is the image property really required for Google's breadcrumbs structured data type?
In its structured data (i.e., Schema.org) documentation, Google says that the "image" property is required for the breadcrumbs data type. That seems new to me, and it seems unnecessary for breadcrumbs. Does anyone think this really matters to Google? More info about breadcrumbs data type:
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Ryan-Ricketts
https://developers.google.com/search/docs/data-types/breadcrumbs I asked Google directly here:
https://twitter.com/RyanRicketts/status/7554782668788531220 -
'?q=:new&sort=new' URL parameters help...
Hey guys, I have these types of URLs being crawled and picked up on by MOZ but they are not visible to my users. The URLs are all 'hidden' from users as they are basically category pages that have no stock, however MOZ is crawling them and I dont understand how they are getting picked up as 'duplicate content'. Anyone have any info on this? http://www.example.ch/de/example/marken/brand/make-up/c/Cat_Perso_Brand_3?q=:new&sort=new Even if I understood the technicality behind it then I could try and fix it if need be. Thanks Guys Kay
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | eLab_London0 -
What to do about old urls that don't logically 301 redirect to current site?
Mozzers, I have changed my site url structure several times. As a result, I now have a lot of old URLs that don't really logically redirect to anything in the current site. I started out 404-ing them, but it seemed like Google was penalizing my crawl rate AND it wasn't removing them from the index after being crawled several times. There are way too many (>100k) to use the URL removal tool even at a directory level. So instead I took some advice and changed them to 200, but with a "noindex" meta tag and set them to not render any content. I get less errors but I now have a lot of pages that do this. Should I (a) just 404 them and wait for Google to remove (b) keep the 200, noindex or (c) are there other things I can do? 410 maybe? Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | jcgoodrich0 -
New website won't rank for branded keywords in Google, but does in Bing
We launched a website in October www.butterfly.com. The branded product name "Butterfly Body Liners" will not rank until page 2 of Google, but it ranks #1 in Bing. Organic traffic never really picked up so it's not easy to tell if it's been "hit" by any penalty. The strange thing is, this website: http://archive.is/PQZdO is ranking #1. This is an archived version of the site. Does anyone have any insight as to why this is happening?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | LaughlinConstable0 -
Google isn't displaying the www. for my site in the SERPS
I noticed that every other site url in the serps for my main keywords has a www. on their display url except mine. I have the site set to display the www. Can this potentially hurt my SEO and what can I do to fix this? Thanks Aaron. www.png
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | afranklin0 -
Why is my site's 'Rich Snippets' information not being displayed in SERPs?
We added hRecipe microformats data to our site in April and then migrated to the Schema.org Recipe format in July, but our content is still not being displayed as Rich Snippets in search engine results. Our pages validate okay in the Google Rich Snippets Testing Tool. Any idea why they are not being displayed in SERP's? Thanks.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Techboy0 -
I'm facinated by SEO but the truth is, I don't have the time to do it. Who can I hire?
I'm facinated by SEO but the truth is, I don't have the time to do it. I trust the moz community more than some of those other SEO forums out there so I'm asking you all, where can I go to find a good SEO firm who's affordable enough for a small startup? The next part of the question is, what should I expect to pay for services that will really make a difference? Please don't spam this thread....I seriously just want an honest opinion as to where I can find some credible help.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Chaz880