There One Day, Gone the Next ?

Hi Jim,

I checked with my hosting company and an htaccess file is fine. I don't already have one setup in my root directory so no worries about overwriting anything. Since I don't already have a file there is no 'rewriteEngine on' line to look for. Do I need any kind of special header for the file?

I think I should just put in the file:

rewriteEngine on
rewriteRule ^content-1-8\.html$ http://www.zonekids.com/girlsclothing.html [R=permanent,L]

etc
etc

Thank you,
Loretta

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Zone4Kids

Exactly Loretta, just try the first permanent redirect and see if this works for you, then add the rest under the last statement.

Let me know,

Regards,

Jim.

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Firewall Test Internet Speed Test Sitemap Generator

Hi Jim,

I created the file and my hosting company uploaded it. The redirects now take people to the new pages.

The .htaccess for me is perfect since I am creating new files with better names as I get time to replace them.

Now I hope to climb my way back into the search pages and hopefully in a better position.

As always, thank you for the care and advice. You make the lessons learned easy and fun!

Best Regards,
Loretta

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Zone4Kids

Hi Jim,

The redirects are in place and I clawed my way back into the search results. I was really happy that I was able to see my home page again in search results when I googled my company name. I thought all was well but I decided to wait before making anymore changes to see that things were stable. Checking again on a few keyword searches as I do most everyday I noticed we disappeared completely again.

I checked Google and I don't have any alerts or messages. My sitemap (done with your tool :-) is OK and was last downloaded Oct 1st. My site is indexed with thousands of pages. I even found some of my new pages indexed.

However, when I check Google Cache I have this message:
cache:www.zone4kids.com - did not match any documents

When I check info:www.zone4kids.com it says no info is available for that url.

What could possibly be going on? I haven't changed any page information since implementing the redirects. The return to keyword search results were better than previous rankings and was pleased to see the progress. I waited just to see some stability before continuing to plug away at some more optimization stuff.

I know this is the life of a webmaster... it sure is exhausting when things like this keep happening. Any hints on what to do next?

Thank you,
Loretta

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Zone4Kids

Not to worry

Try info: www.zone4kids.com

I get a number of pages, you just needed the space

I did notice that
http://www.fortune3.com/Zone4Kids/
is the same as
http://www.zone4kids.com/

and that is duplicate content (on your main page).

I'd stick in a redirect (htaccess) that looks for the first and redirects to the second and make it a permanent 301 redirect, not temporary!

You are lucky, right now, Google has the fortune3 address as a supplemental result, so Google sees your site (zone4kids) as the main site.

do site: www.zone4kids.com and you'll notice a supplemental result. Click on that result and you can see what I'm referring to.

"exhausting" - tell me about it

Hope that picks up your day Loretta!

Best regards,

Jim.

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Firewall Test Internet Speed Test Sitemap Generator

Hi Jim,

I'm having a tough time understanding supplementals. I don't see anywhere the word "supplemental" when viewing search results. How can you tell if your in supplemental? What should it look like?

I think syntax is really important as I get different results with:

site:www.zone4kids.com versus site: www.zone4kids.com

I took your advice and checked with my hosting company about duplicate content and they said it is not duplicate content that both addresses point to the same directory structure on their server. They do this for all the companies that they host and a 301 redirect is not necessary. They said that I probably disappeared because I changed my home page and it will take a bit of time for Google to re-index. I checked several Google forums and they said several months....I'd hate to wait several months and not see any improvement. It would really frost me if in fact Google has pushed my address to supplementals in favor of my hosting company's address and a 301 redirect would have quickly resolved it.

How long do you think it should take to re-index? Do you think I would benefit from pushing the 301 redirect?

Thanks,
Loretta

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Zone4Kids

Hi Loretta,

Don't take my word for it, ask the above question on other forums and see what they say.

Question: Can you name a site that is hosted on fortune3 that has high PR (not that it really matters, but does add to the equation) and ranks well in Google's search results? I only ask so that I may verify they have the same setup as you (two domain names pointing to the same content).

I'm sure they have sites that use their services, rank well and are proud of, but I didn't see them listed on their site? Can you get the addresses of a few?

Best regards,

Jim.

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Firewall Test Internet Speed Test Sitemap Generator

Hi Jim,

Here are two sites to check:

http://www.jewelryshopping.com

They have a page rank of 4, but I couldn't find them on the first 5-10 pages of search results for product keyword searching on wedding rings, keepsake jewelry, pendants or childrens jewelry.

http://www.soccergearcentral.com

They have a page rank of 3 and I searched soccer uniforms and found them on page 6.

Both sites are setup the same as mine with two domains pointing to the same pages on the server.

When I search using site:www.sitename.com or site: www.sitename.com both of them have their homepage come up in the results.

Must be something I did to my site....

Z4K

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Zone4Kids

Hello Loretta,

The first two pages are what counts.

As for the response:
I can not believe they put this into writing!

Duplicate content IS the same html file found on another page or another domain! Engines can, and will punish you! The definition of duplicate content from Google is:
Duplicate content generally refers to substantive blocks of content within or across domains that either completely match other content or are appreciably similar.

Google explains duplicate content here:
http://www.google.com/support/webmas...n&answer=66359

Google’s Quality Guidelines also include include:
Don't create multiple pages, subdomains, or domains with substantially duplicate content.

If you need more examples, there are TONS of them, just do an advanced search on Google for Duplicate Content and restrict the search to www.google.com – MSN and Yahoo also have the same policy.

I am happy to help you out Loretta, but as for responding to the comments made by your hosting company, I do not have the time and do not want to get in the middle of this stuff – but, I would seriously recommend that you follow Google’s guidelines and rules rather than take the advice given in the response above (which is 100% backwards)

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Firewall Test Internet Speed Test Sitemap Generator

Hi Jim,

Thank you for the info and I certainly don't intend to get you into the middle of this dilemma. I value your advice and guidance immensely. And BTW all the searching and reading on this in other forums makes me want to run right back here because your organization of this forum is much easier to navigate and find the information you need.

Keep up the good work.

Have a terrific day!
Loretta

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Zone4Kids