Google Found then Lost

  • I have an educational web site devoted to curriculum development, so it is important that my web site can be found on Google. At the beginning of last summer, I could easily find my web site on Google when I did a test search. Some of the key phrases I would use in the test searches were: Alles Biology, Marine Phytoplankton Blooms, and Asian Air Pollution. Note that I did not need to use quotes to achieve a successful search on Google then. Now I am unable to find my site on Google no matter what combination of key words or phrases I use. I have tried the advance search and still no luck. I am, however, able to find my site on some other search engines (but not the homepage). What gives with Google? My real question is what must I do to modify my web site to be easily found. Note that I have added several new pages to my site and want others to be able to find them by key phrases (example: Stellar Nursery in the Orion Nebula). My web site URL is < http://fire.biol.wwu.edu/trent/alles/index.html >.


  • Hi, When I saw your URL there at the bottom I was a bit stunned that you were having the problems you described in the question. Google normally goes above and beyond in indexing the .edu type websites. When I got to the URL you posted I was stunned again to see that you have no PR (PageRank) at all. The meter is gray, which happens normally for new sites that haven't been indexed at all, or have been taken out of the search engine for one reason or another, none of them applying to your website. But your website is a lower level of the main http://fire.biol.wwu.edu, so I went to check on the PR for that webpage and found our problem. http://fire.biol.wwu.edu has no PR and nothing on the page, and no robots.txt to guide the robots to your website inside. Nothing. In fact there are only four lines of code on that main page which do nothing except change the background to black. This is your problem. The robots probably believe there is nothing on this domain and there's nothing to tell them otherwise. Even though you have an extensive website back in the lower levels you are not the main domain level, so nothing is being seen. Thus the robots have written your domain server off and set it to NULL in the PR area. Other Search Engines still have you listed because your pages still exist, and there are probably direct links to the pages. But this won't last long either. Eventually you will be weeded out of their engines too because the main page doesn't have anything on it. Some of the other engines are not as fast in doing this type of house cleaning as Google is. Things you can do. Get a hold of you webmaster and ask that he put something on that main page and a link to your from there. About 300-500 words would be enough to take care of it. If I were you I'd send him the 300-500 words and just ask him to stick it on there. After this, resubmit the main site to Google and perhaps write them a letter via email at this address help@google.com to see if they can restart the website. You should only submit the main URL to google, don't put in your back page area. But in your email to them, explain your area is your website, maybe they can do some tweaking (don't count on that). Add your URL to Google ://www.google.com/addurl.html Google Information for Webmasters ://www.google.com/webmasters/2.html Page Rank Questions ://www.google.com/webmasters/4.html Good luck to you, webadept-ga