Hi,

I wonder if anyone can shine some light on my problem.

This is going to sound confussing, hopefully someone will be able to help me, god knows I need it.

I have removed the www from all the links so it doesn't look that I'm trying to generate traffic.

About four months ago, I had my site (salsajester.com) redirecting to salsa-uk.com. About three months ago I stopped the redirect and salsajester.com become a site in it's own right.

After a week I went to google a typed in site:salsajester.com then I didn't get any results back other than the homepage, which is what I expected. I then typed link:salsajester.com and got links back from sites that linked to the previous site I was redirecting to, again I can see why that happened.

Anyway, about two weeks later all the links were dropped and a couple started to appear from sites thatlinked to the domain salsajester.com and under site:salsajester.com most of the pages from the site were indexed, excellent, just what I was looking for.

Since then google has seemed to have gotten in a mess, the links get dropped and then reappear as the links from when it was redirecting to salsauk.com and all of my new site indexed pages get dropped. You an see the current state here link:salsajester.com you will notice that none of the pages actually link to salsajester.com also site:salsajester.com only now has the homepage indexed.

Also, something else that is strange if you go to info:salsajester.com it displays the site I was redirecting to three months ago.

What is also strange is that every 1-2 weeks all the pages got dropped from the google and salsajester.com and sites that link to it starts indexing correctly again, then the above happens again, this has happend three or four time and everytime I think google is finally sorting itself out the pages get dropped and the sites linking to me go back the redirect and all indexed pages are dropped :-(

Has anyone any suggestion on how to sort this mess out.

Thanks
Andy

Andy I'm not sure how much this will help, but I'll try.

It might just still be a matter of time. If it has been 3 months where salsajester.com isn't redirecting I would think that would be enough time to sort things out. I'm not seeing a lot of pages indexd at Yahoo though I do see some so it really may just be a matter of a little more time.

I did notice that the link: command at Google for the salsajester.com showed no backlinks, but the same command for www.salsajester.com showed 31 backlinks. You probably want to redirect one version to the other. It doesn't matter which way, but it's more common to redirect the non www version to the www version. Make sure the redirect is a 301 or permanent redirect.

Also the link: command is only updated ever few months, usually around the same time as toolbar PR is update. You may have just missed the last update and the next one (which I think is expected soon) will show the links you expect. Remember too that the link: command in Google never shows them all, just a random sampling of the backlinks Google knows about.

I would think you should be seeing the info: command showing the right site, but it's possible that it's still not sorted out on Google's end.

Same for the site: command. I only see a few pages included for a site: command at Yahoo so maybe the time thing is the answer.

You could try signing up for Google Webmaster Tools and creating a Sitemap once you have. It might help Google sort things out.

Something tells me it's just a little more time that's needed, but if you aren't seeing something soon then maybe there is more of a problem

Thanks for the information and suggestions, I am already signed up for google webmaster tools but haven't done a sitemap, I will give that a go and hope it will help.

The 31 backlinks do not link to salsajester.com, if yougo to any of the links they do not link to my site, they link to the previous redirect, this does change, to the 5/6 site that are actually linking to me at some point, but after a week or two revert back to the 31 :-(

I know yahoo doesn't have a lot of pages, but it is a small site.

Google had about 45 Unique pages, not alot I know but it is a small site and also in a niece area so search results prooved to be good, normally on the top half on the first page. But then they indexed pages dissapered, they will come back, as they have before, but in the mean time I am not being found.

Also, the problem I have is that certain previous pages will not be indexed again, as they are no longer accessable through the site via linnks even though the page still exists, normally google would have just check that the page exists and keep it indexed, I will probably now have to create an archive page of previous events/links.


Once again thank you for your suggestions.

Google have just finished an update, so the index is in its usual state of settling as DC synch up for a start.

There is always a unstable period after redirects are removed, make sure that both sites have minimum duplicate content, they both have decent links pointing to them and any cross linking is not excessive.
You should expect 5 to 6 months of fluctuations at least. The older established domain may settle down a little sooner.