10 replies to this topic

[DannyAFC]

Hi,

we rank well on the competitive keywords in our industry and im getting concerened because our cache dates are starting to get quite old.

for example, keywords that bring up our home page show a cahced version from 19th April 2007.

we used to get an update every few days.

is this something normal, or am i to start worrying.

one more point though:
other sites that use the same e-commerce provider and hosts as us also show chache dates within a day or two of ours.

Thanks.

[Jill]

Is there no content on the pages that needs to be indexed or is the cached version the same as what you currently have?

If it's the latter, then why do you care?

Why should Google waste time reindexing the same content?

[Michael Martinez]

This could be an indication of several possibilities (and perhaps even a few I cannot think of). For example, it may be that Google simply scaled back on crawling your part of the Web for internal, technical reasons and nothing is wrong.

Or it could be that Google is not updating all of its cache data while rolling out new features.

Or it could be that some of the pages linking to your content have gone Supplemental and are no longer sending Googlebot to your pages.

Or it could be that you had some technical problems with your server the last time Google tried to crawl it and the robot could not access the server.

Or it could be that you have changed or deleted some content and your internal linkage is no longer as strong as it once was.

Or it could be that someone dinked with your robots.txt file.

And so on.

My point is that simply knowing the frequency of cache date updates has declined doesn't tell you anything for certain. It may be a symptom of a correctible problem or it may only be an indication of some under-the-hood tinkering that really shouldn't hurt you.

[Alan Perkins]

One strong possibility is that your e-commerce provider/host has started issuing 304 responses to Googlebot. This would save considerable bandwidth on their part, but the effect on you would be older cache pages.

Try checking the cache date of recently added or modified products and see if it's newer. Also, if possible, check your logs and see if you can see 304 responses to Googlebot in them. Or ask your e-commerce provider if they have recently added this mod.

[MtraX]

I'm sure if you update your Google Sitemap after having updated pages it would update the cached pages (if they need to be updated)? Shouldn't really matter though.

[DannyAFC]

One strong possibility is that your e-commerce provider/host has started issuing 304 responses to Googlebot. This would save considerable bandwidth on their part, but the effect on you would be older cache pages.

alan you are sort of correct, on quizzing our e-commerce provider i got this from them this morning:

The platform from which the spiders run is now using a new IP stack which is in conflict with the loadbalancing hardware that spread load between the servers in the ************** webfarm. The result is that Google is still visiting sites (and customers can still view pages) but the results returned to Google are incomplete or non-existent.

[Alan Perkins]

I can guess what "**************" stands for!

[DannyAFC]

i didnt want to incriminate the name of our ecommcer provider.

pretty tempted though, seeing as their technologies cant keep up with the most popular search engine in the world!!!

also as i worked so damn hard to achieve the results that we currently have.

[Alan Perkins]

Oh, I thought you were self-censoring.

[torka]

Did you get any sense from them that they considered this a problem and/or that they're working to resolve the issue?

--Torka

[Michael Martinez]

Do they really call it a "webfarm"? Ouch! Talk about an unfortunat choice of terms.

At least they seem to be aware of the issue. If they don't take action within a few days, I would be very concerned.