The site is www.babala.org and all the other search engines find us without difficulty, all except Google, the primary, the most important!

The site's been up for a couiple months, and there are PLENTY of medium-high-ranked pages linking to ours, but Google still says we don't exist.

4 days ago we switched to SE-friendly URLs, hoping to achieve recognition from Google, whose policy expressly states that URLs containing "&Id=" will NOT be indexed. But so far no luck.

Of course, we explicitly submitted the site to Google, both before and after switching to SEF URLs. Maybe it's too soon. Our keyword structure is pretty decent, as is title and description. I've asked the site's Administrator to add the tag <META name=language content=en> to the HTML heading area, but as yet he hasn't gotten around to it. The server (and my administrator) are in Czech Republic and I thought Google might SURMISE the language to be non-English, and so fail to index. I also suggested adding "lang=en" to EACH of the existing META tags. This hasn't been done yet. My boss has doubts that this is root of problem.

So what's wrong, oh wise and sage masters, hmmm??? or is PATIENCE all that's really required?

Thanks in advance!

Patience yes. Word on the street is that the google 'ageing delay' is 6 - 8 months (at least that's what I've read).

that stinks

welcome to WT, dude. I think that google can sometimes push your patience to the edge.

Originally Posted by hat_lain_home

4 days ago we switched to SE-friendly URLs, hoping to achieve recognition from Google, whose policy expressly states that URLs containing "&Id=" will NOT be indexed. But so far no luck.

Google DOES index dynamic URL's including those that have the "&Id=" parameter.

Even if you went to Google and did a search for &Id= google will display results.

They do state however that their spider has problems crawling pages that have more than 2 parameters.

SEF pages may make a difference on other search engines, but Google does crawl them!

Thank you for those replies. If the site is indexed by Google there's sure no indication. 6 to 8 months?? I can't accept that as truth. Maybe Google blacklisted our site based on earlier encountering of non-friendly URLs, and now there's a bug/snag in their reprieve code, uh for non-domestic sites or somethin'.

Originally Posted by hat_lain_home

If the site is indexed by Google there's sure no indication. 6 to 8 months?? I can't accept that as truth

Accept it or not, it exists and there isn't a lot you can do about it Aging Delay

You don't get banned/penalised/blacklisted for having parameters in your URIs. You get banned for trying to deceive the SEs.

Originally Posted by hat_lain_home

and now there's a bug/snag in their reprieve code, uh for non-domestic sites or somethin'

Ok, Just leave the Google bug/conspiracy theories to Daniel Brandt

Originally Posted by chrishirst

Accept it or not, it exists... Aging Delay

No, that citation isn't at all on point. The crux is in the wording: "I haven't seen any brand-new sites with new domains appear at the top of the search engine results pages (SERPs) since early in 2004. There seems to be a delay of about 6-8 months." He later goes on say "My theory is blah blah blah..".

This isn't about WHERE on the search results the site appears ..it's about whether it appears at all, whether it's being indexed AT ALL. That citation is all "I haven't seen this" and "I don't know of that", all conjecture and not even on point.

Originally Posted by chrishirst

You don't get banned/penalised/blacklisted for having parameters in your URIs.

'Not true, according to Google itself..

<<Don't use "&id=" as a parameter in your URLs, as we don't include these pages in our index. >>
Source: http://www.google.com/webmasters/guidelines.html

Originally Posted by chrishirst

Ok, Just leave the Google bug/conspiracy theories to Daniel Brandt

I don't care to broaden the thread's topic to encompass personality interplay. 6-8 months "ageing"? WHAZZAT? I can't accept it simply because there are tons of newcomer domain owners 100% happy with their Google recognition.

FYI:
Ok, it's all figured out now, ie. only the issue of non-indexing by Google but indexing by all others! Google is smart, and it studies the 'pattern' of source file mod dates over a period and makes its own determinationn if the site is substantially still "under construction"! If so it holds off. Way back when I started this thread, and until about 3.6 weeks ago, I was meddling at the site near continually, hah!

Good News - You have 179 pages in the google index. Google has your details.

Bad News - Despite this it wont even start to get you in the serps for at least 6-8 mths so concentrate on your content and sites that link to you whilst your waiting

Good luck

Originally Posted by RichTC

Good News - ...Google has your details.
Good luck

um, right, I meant to divulge, oops, that a breakthrough occurred 'bout 4-5 days ago, and Google indexes us suddenly. 'Got it figured out!