Google caching meta tags from another site?
-
We have several sites on the same server.
On the weekend we relocated some servers, changing IP address.
A client has since noticed something freaky with the meta tags.
1. They search for their companyname, and another site from the same server appears in position 1. It is completely unrelated, has never happened before, and the company name is not used in any incoming text links.
Eg search for company1 on Google. Company1.com.au appears at position 2, but at position1 is school1.com.au. The words company1 don't appear anywhere on the site. I've analysed all incoming links with a gazillion tools, and can't find any link text of company1, linking to school1.
2. Even more freaky, searching for company1.com.au at Google. The results at Google in position 1 for the last three days has been:
Meta Title for school1 (but hovering/clicking actual goes to URL for company1)
Meta Description for school1
URL for company1.com.auClicking on the cached copy of result1, it shows a cached version of school1 taken on March 18.
Today is 29 March.
Logically we are trying to get Google to spider both sites again quickly. We've asked the clients to update their home pages. Resubmitted xml sitemaps.
Checked the HTTP status codes - both are happily returning 200s. Different cookies.
I found another instance on a forum:
http://webmasters.stackexchange.com/questions/10578/incorrect-meta-information-in-google
Any ideas?
-
hi Keri
The problem went away after 3 days without us doing anything much. But the client was pretty antsy during those 3 days.
I had posted on the Google forums, and one guy had suggested that there were problems with the dns - the intodns.com tool highlighted some. Possibly missing dns servers - there was unusual stuff in the intodns report.
We don't manage the nameservers for the siite with the problem, so there wasn't anything we could do.
The site was recrawled, possibly as a result of resubmitting the nameserver, and it was ok.
thanks
chris
-
Did this ever get resolved? If so, what was the result and do you have any idea what caused it?
-
Probably a bug from Google, you should ask them to look manually a it :
http://www.google.com/support/websearch/?hl=en
You may also create a forum post :
http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/Webmasters/label?lid=1d4d2553a95152c2&hl=en
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
-
Site Hack In Meta Description
Hey MOZ Community, I am looking for some help in identifying where the following meta description is coming from on this home page - https://www.apins.com. I have scrubbed through the page source without being able to locate where the content is being pulled from. The website is built on WordPress and metas were updated using Yoast, but I am wondering if an installed plugin could be the culprit. On top of this, I have had a developer take a look for the "hack" and they have assured that the issue has been removed. I have submitted the URL in GSC a couple of times to be re-indexed but have not had much luck. Any thoughts would be much appreciated, the displayed description is below. The health screening plays http://buyviagraonlineccm.com/ a significant and key role in detecting potentially life-threatening illnesses such as cancer, heart ...
Technical SEO | | jordankremer0 -
I have made my new website live. But while checking in Google it is not showing in search result ( site: www.oomfr.com ). Can anybody please advice.
Hi Team, I have made my new website live. But while checking in Google it is not showing in search result ( site: www.oomfr.com ). Can anybody please advice.
Technical SEO | | nlogix0 -
Is a canonical tag the best solution for multiple search listing pages in a site?
I have a site where dozens of page listings are showing in my report with a parameter showing the page number for the listings. Is the best solution to canonical these page listings back a core page (all-products)? Or, do I change my site configuration in Webmasters to ignore "page" parameters? What's the solution? Example URL 1- http://mydomain.com/products/all-products?page=84 Example URL 2- http://mydomain.com/products/all-products?page=85 Example URL 3- http://mydomain.com/products/all-products?page=86 Thanks in advance for your direction.
Technical SEO | | JoshKimber0 -
Yoast SEO Plugin and Theme Conflict - Meta Tags
I have installed yoast seo plugin and a theme that I purchased.
Technical SEO | | vivadata
I have added site title and meta description for the index page through yoast seo plugin see here http://screencast.com/t/AdjMynym8Tm however this does not work as can be seen on the test site
http://importingtips.com/test/ does anyone have any advice? Thanks0 -
Page Indexing increase when I request Google Site Link demote
Hi there, Has anyone seen a page crawling increase in Google Web Master Tools when they have requested a site link demotion? I did this around the 23rd of March, the next day I started to see page crawling rise and rise and report a very visible spike in activity and to this day is still relatively high. From memory I have asked about this in SEOMOZ Q&A a couple of years ago in and was told that page crawl activity is a good thing - ok fine, no argument. However at the nearly in the same period I have noticed that my primary keyword rank for my home page has dropped away to something in the region of 4th page on Google US and since March has stayed there. However the exact same query in Google UK (Using SEOMOZ Rank Checker for this) has remained the same position (around 11th) - it has barely moved. I decided to request an undemote on GWT for this page link and the page crawl started to drop but not to the level before March 23rd. However the rank situation for this keyword term has not changed, the content on our website has not changed but something has come adrift with our US ranks. Using Open Site Explorer not one competitor listed has a higher domain authority than our site, page authority, domain links you name it but they sit there in first page. Sorry the above is a little bit of frustration, this question is not impulsive I have sat for weeks analyzing causes and effects but cannot see why this disparity is happening between the 2 country ranks when it has never happened for this length of time before. Ironically we are still number one in the United States for a keyword phrase which I moved away from over a month ago and do not refer to this phrase at all on our index page!! Bizarre. Granted, site link demotion may have no correlation to the KW ranking impact but looking at activities carried out on the site and timing of the page crawling. This is the only sizable factor I can identify that could be the cause. Oh! and the SEOMOZ 'On-Page Optimization Tool' reports that the home page gets an 'A' for this KW term. I have however this week commented out the canonical tag for the moment in the index page header to see if this has any effect. Why? Because as this was another (if not minor) change I employed to get the site to an 'A' credit with the tool. Any ideas, help appreciated as to what could be causing the rank differences. One final note the North American ranks initially were high, circa 11-12th but then consequently dropped away to 4th page but not the UK rankings, they witnessed no impact. Sorry one final thing, the rank in the US is my statistical outlier, using Google Analytics I have an average rank position of about 3 across all countries where our company appears for this term. Include the US and it pushes the average to 8/9th. Thanks David
Technical SEO | | David-E-Carey0 -
W3C html5 meta tags invalid?
Dear Mozers, we get errors when validating meta tags in html5. I know it's experimental and not all metas are valid, but how do you handle this? Leave the tags out? here are some examples: `…name="DC.title" content="my content...xyc.." /**>**` ``` `>` ``` `>` ``` `>` ``` `>` `>` I tried to find some information but couldn't. What would you do? Thanks a lot, Barbara
Technical SEO | | barbara-f0 -
Problems with google cache
Hi Can you please advise if the following website is corrupted in the eyes of Google, it has been written in umbraco and I have taken over it from another developer and I am confused to why it is behaving the way it is. cache:www.tangoholidaysolutions.com When I run this all I see is the header, the start of the main content and then the footer. If I view text view all the content is visible. The 2nd issue I have with this site is as follows: Main Page: http://www.tangoholidaysolutions.com/holiday-lettings-spain/ This page is made up of widgets i.e. locations, featured villas, content However the widgets are their own webpages in their own right http://www.tangoholidaysolutions.com/holiday-lettings-spain/location-picker/ My concern is that this part pages will affect the performance of the seo on the site. In an ideal world I would have the CMS setup so these widgets are not classed as pages, but I am working on this. Thanks Andy
Technical SEO | | iprosoftware0 -
Why did our site drop in Google rankings?
My site's URL (web address) is: http://tinyurl.com/3svn2l9 Hi there, We operate a travel site that lists numerous tours, accommodation and activities. Since 6th August 2011 we have dropped from top 10 SERP rankings of our pages to around result number 100 (page 10) and losing massive amount of visitors via Google Search. Our Yahoo and Bing rankings are still in the top10. We need your advice and quick! The last changes we have made are the following: -redirected the non-www version to the www version on the 1st August -bought advertising with a follow link in a sidebar that is being populated across the site (+4000 pages) about 2 months ago -added a blog to the website 2 weeks ago and posted 2 posts to date. Additionally, our website structure allows visitors (and bots) to see the same listings via different URLs which caused duplicate content. This has been the case since the launch of our website about 1 year ago. To prevent this duplicate content we have placed canonical tags on the individual listings pages. Why did our site all of a sudden plummet in the rankings?
Technical SEO | | Robbern0