7 replies to this topic

[Briz]

Hello,

I'm having a problem where the listing shown in Google shows only the URL with no other information at all. No site description or anything.

The site used to be shown with the description that is contained in the Meta tag and the site also used to be ranked in the top 5 for its search terms and is now not in the top few hundred (like has happened to many other people). My page rank is unaffected, but Google now shows I have only a few links to the site, whereas I have a lot more than that (all relevant).

Has anyone else had the problem of the disappearing description? It's been gone for a month now - not sure if this is related to the other things that are happening with Google. Is there anything I can do to get the description back?

I am getting to view the listing by entering as the search term the accronym by which the centre is known (rather than the usual search terms such as "exhibition centre ...etc" - because I can't find it using those). The URL of the site contains the accronym I have been entering as a search term - could that be the reason why it's showing with no description?

Thanks in advance for any replies.

[Jill]

Welcome, Briz!

Was your site down for any period of time? It sounds like Google only knows about the link to your page, but not the page itself.

In fact, check your robots.txt file and make sure you haven't excluded Google or the other spiders by mistake.

Jill

[Randy]

Hi and welcome Briz!

The no description in listing thing you describe typically means that Google knows of the page, but wasn't able to spider it the last time they came by. Was the server the site is on down anytime just before it went AWOL? Have there been any changes made on the coding side of things that are now requiring a Cookie or Session ID to view the pages? That's the kind of thing to keep an eye out for.

If it was simply a matter of the server being offline when Googlebot came by for a visit, that will correct itself eventually. You just have to wait for the site to get spidered again and get the descriptions added back to the index.

Depending upon how often Googlebot visits your site, that could be anywhere from a week to two months. But in the meantime make sure there weren't any changes on the coding side of things that is locking it out.

as a funny note... I have this one subscription-based site I developed over a year ago. When I started on it I didn't have the members area behind password protection because there really wasn't anything anybody could streal at that time.

Google found the site somehow though, most likely from the Toolbar and me checking pages I guess. To this day Google still knows about and lists those interior pages, even though it hasn't been able to get to them for over a year! No descriptions of course, but they're still in the index.

[Briz]

Thank you both for your help. It did end up being the robots.txt that was the problem. Should be good now. Thanks again!

[Jill]

Aha! Another case of a robots.txt blackballing!

Glad you got it sorted out.

Jill

[Briz]

Hello again,

Unfortunately my problem isn't fixed...

On 10 February I completely removed the robots.txt file. Since then, the logs show that googlebot has visited the site, but the listing still hasn't changed in the Search Results (i.e still no description).

It doesn't seem to be a problem with spiders being able to visit now, as on Yahoo it is showing up with a full description (and comes up number 1 like it used to on Google!).

Given that googlebot has been in, should it be taking this long (13 days) for the change to be reflected in the search results? Do I just need to wait a bit longer, or do you think there might be some other problem?

Thanks,
Briz

[icarusthevirus]

I experienced the same problem last night. But it seems that this is a problem on Google's side but not with your site.

I searched my site for one of the most competitive targeted keyword and it was still ranking at 1st place , 2hours later it has disappeared ; i then looked for the google's cached version and it showed a version dated 24.01.04 and when i searched the site with its whole <title> in quote i got the result without description.

About two hours later the site was back at its 1st position with its current description. I decided to stop stressing myself with all this and found something else to do.

[Jill]

It's going to take time. These things don't happen immediately. Give it 4 to 6 weeks, and you should be fine.

Jill