The Mirago Homepage Mystery Continues
Story Text:
OK, The situation with Mirago was covered briefly on threadwatch here:- Google still blacklisting the competition? But the story died a death when it appeared that the listings were reinstated. However, Mirago still has an intresting situation - do a search for the domain name: Mirago.co.uk and the site does not exist :/.
However just search for Mirago and the .co.uk site is number 1:-
So it does not exist and exists at the same time ;)
Does this suggest that domain searches are held on a different database from main searches ?
Google IMO has had canonical url problems for ages - is this just a side effect/fix/cover up.
OK, The situation with Mirago was covered briefly on threadwatch here:- Google still blacklisting the competition? But the story died a death when it appeared that the listings were reinstated. However, Mirago still has an intresting situation - do a search for the domain name: Mirago.co.uk and the site does not exist :/.
However just search for Mirago and the .co.uk site is number 1:-
So it does not exist and exists at the same time ;)
Does this suggest that domain searches are held on a different database from main searches ?
Google IMO has had canonical url problems for ages - is this just a side effect/fix/cover up.
- Y! MyWeb
Perhaps I should not add to my own posts
New - here - better to add or edit posts - I dont know.
www.mirago.co.uk also a PR1 - with 926,000 Backlinks in Yahoo. - Hmmmz
and - check out the references to Mirago on the backlinks that Google does display - none of them have a reference to www.mirago.co.uk - they are either searches.mirago.co.uk, or images.mirago.co.uk.
So Canonical url problem ?
One of my theories about Canonical urls is that the domain.com takes over from www.domain.com - I suppose it may have been possible that Mirago.co.uk was a PR1 - and the backlinks are correct in being displayed if showing links to Mirago.co.uk
I don't think it's a
I don't think it's a canonical problem per se. I can think of several other sites that return 200 error codes for the www / non-www versions of the sites, and do just fine.
For my money the telling bit is the results of the search on the domain name, versus the brand name. That implies that the domain, specifically, carries a penalty
Return 200 codes for www / non www versions
Yes, lots of sites do just fine. But lots of sites also suffer. Matt has said that they dont always handle the non-www / www issue aswell as they can - but normally they get it right - but it appears to be less so from where I am sitting.
On the search for the domain name - an internal page outranks the homepage for that search at about 140 odd.
Yes, penalty - perhaps - but penalty due to wrong doing or penalty due to Google error ?
or penalty due to manual
or penalty due to manual exclusion?
So manual exclusion then manual fix so they can appear for the..
brand name ??
Take the title of the page and do this search:-
Mirago the UK Search Engine
Again the page sinks and is outranked by an internal page at about 140 ish
And although the homepage is a PR1 - some internal pages are PR5 - eg:-
http://www.mirago.co.uk/scripts/regional.aspx
http://www.mirago.co.uk/scripts/sectors.aspx
Although http://www.mirago.co.uk/scripts/regional.aspx is a PR5 and not even cached :/
This is what seems to happen to my sites :(
It is definetly a problem with the homepage - just cant work out if delibrate action by Google - seems strange way of doing it if it is a penalty :/
the clue is in the small print ,...
www.medisearch.co.uk ... thats the problem imo ..
Nope - DaveN - Just found problem ;)
http://zone.mirago.co.uk - Is the problem.
OK - strange for Mirago to do it - But Google has failed in working out the canonical url - Look which pages have PR on the Zone version and look at the PR on the normal version.
To me it proves that if Google finds a duplicate of your site - even on your own domain (Ok sub-domain) G gets messed.
Mirago should have picked one no doubt - but this happens to some sites with non-www, www which webmasters are less likely to worry about unless they have read SEO forums.
Intresting - this is exactly 100000000000% the same that has happened to my site (although I have no zone - lol) but it shows that Google cant work out the Canonical url.
I hope one day Google listen - your Canonical url calculations are screwy !!!!!
To me.....
This a perfect example of how the Canonical url problem can effect sites - it is more clearly shown because of the Zone sub-domain but everything else fits into exactly how my site has dived in the rankings.
Cheers.
are you sure :)
I can't prove it, bit i think that Google has a canonical problem with www.medisearch.co.uk (owned By Mirago) and mirago.co.uk ...
http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=mirago you get mirago and medisearch but medisearch does not resolve ... now if google has a canonical problem with mirago.co.uk and medisearch.co.uk (not resolving) a removal would happen over time .. also try this search http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&q=.mirago.co.uk
again this is just my opinion .
DaveN
Dont know for sure Dave
But it certainly looks to be a problem with how Google is handling the situation rather than a manual penalty.
Now this has been happening for lots of sites - and whenever I have stickied someone at WMW these are the exact same symptons.
If the Google Engineers to work out this problem - then hopefully problems for other sites will get fixed too.
But more importantly IMO it shows that the Canonical URL situation is far from fixed - so little noise coming out of the plex regarding this problem I was worried they thought they had it fixed or it was not an issue.
When it is surely the number 1 issue at the moment ?