Google Doesn't Find My Forum's Content

[Gary Lewis]

And, by the way, a Yahoo search finds "My 4-door diesel project has a hopeless case of what Gary would call scope creep."  So both Bing and Yahoo do find it and Google doesn't - in spite of the fact that I've asked Google many times to crawl the site, and several of those times were recently.  And I've not done anything special with any of them, just proved that I own the resource.

[Gary Lewis]

Is there any news on this front?  I still can't find things on my forum via Google, but both Bing and Yahoo find things easily.  And, my embedded search finds things as well.  Just not the most-used search engine.  

[Gary Lewis]

Peter - Thanks for the email, shown below.  I'm posting it here so Greg can see as he is having the same problem.

Also, as said in my email, I'd like to understand how you put Google Analytics on the forum.  Not that I'm concerned that you did it, but I would like know how to do it so I can track the traffic on the forum as I do on the website.


Hi Gary,
Sorry about the time it took getting back to you. We tried to gather data of your forum. attached is what we found. Your site is clearly being crawled but your are not being indexed... I would think the issue is what Greg suggested... My guess is it is Weebly but we can wait a bit longer for more data collection on the google search console

Lastly there is a link on the bottom of your site with the old web address of the forum. it should be removed...

Peter,
Nabble Support

[haozwang<Nabble>]

I created the segment for your forum on the google search console, then I override the html macro and inserted a piece of code given by google in it.

On Tue, Jan 23, 2018 at 7:40 PM, Gary Lewis [via Nabble Support] <[hidden email]> wrote:

Peter - Thanks for the email, shown below.  I'm posting it here so Greg can see as he is having the same problem.

Also, as said in my email, I'd like to understand how you put Google Analytics on the forum.  Not that I'm concerned that you did it, but I would like know how to do it so I can track the traffic on the forum as I do on the website.


Hi Gary,
Sorry about the time it took getting back to you. We tried to gather data of your forum. attached is what we found. Your site is clearly being crawled but your are not being indexed... I would think the issue is what Greg suggested... My guess is it is Weebly but we can wait a bit longer for more data collection on the google search console

Lastly there is a link on the bottom of your site with the old web address of the forum. it should be removed...

Peter,
Nabble Support

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[GregChapman]

I am not sure I understand your response to Gary. This appears to be a general problem . All my (embedded) forums that I have tested are suffering the problem.

[Gary Lewis]

Greg - Thanks for saying that.  Exactly why I wanted it here rather than in email.

Peter - I sorta understand what you said about getting Google to track it as I know about getting the code and embedding it on a page since I've done that for the rest of my site.  But where did you override the html?  That's the part I couldn't figure out.

And, how do I now track it?

[Gary Lewis]

Peter - Apparently you've put a Nabble-owned Google tracking ID on my forum on the Nabble server.  Since I'm tracking access to my website and want to do so to my forum, I'm told by Google that there are two things that can be done in order to make that happen, and only you can do them:

1. Go into the admin section of the Nabble analytics account and then to manage users. There you can enter my email address, which is associated with my Google analytics account, and add me as a user. You can select the permissions level once I've been added, but that way I'll be able to access my data through my account.

2. Replace your tracking code with mine - UA-71268356-2.  I'll be happy to supply you with usage info as frequently as you want it.  Or, maybe add my tracking code and we can both get the info.

I really appreciate you trying to figure out why Google can't find the info on embedded forums - many embedded forums - while both Bing and Yahoo can find the info.  But, I would also like to see the data that is being collected on my forum.

Thanks

[haozwang<Nabble>]

Hi Gary, don't replace the tracking code in the html macro. I can add you the the search console

[Gary Lewis]

Please do!  I'd love to see what Google is finding.

So, tell me when you've done it and how I access it.  Thanks!

[Gary Lewis]

Actually, I got an email telling me how to get in.  Thanks again.

[Gary Lewis]

Peter - At the risk of overloading you I'm including a lot of info in this post.  The bottom line is that Google is not indexing my forum.  And, given that it will never find anything on it.  But both Bing and Yahoo have found it and are indexing it.  And, since both Greg and I are confident that this is the case with all embedded forums on Nabble, we really need your help.

I've been looking at the reports and have noticed a few things.  First, while Google appears to have crawled the forum, it hasn't indexed it.  And it is in the indexing, and not the crawling, that it catalogs the search topics.

Here's the index status as of today:  NADA



So, I submitted both the .forum/garysgaragemahal as well as the bullnose-enthusiasts.12971.n8.nabble.com for indexing.  As shown below, it can't find the bullnose-enthusiasts as it is adding the .forum ahead of it.  So submitting that to be indexed is something you will have to do.




Also, note that the .forum got redirected to garysgaragemahal, as shown below.  So that's not going to help as I have it already indexing that page.




Last, I used Google's advanced search function, as described here, to see what Google has found on bullnose-enthusiasts.12971.n8.nabble.com.  And all it has found is Gary's Garagemahal - Bullnose Forum.  And, in spite of it showing the Nabble URL, it gets redirected to http://www.garysgaragemahal.com/.

[haozwang<Nabble>]

can we experiment a little-bit, can you set the option NOT to redirect to your main site and see what the search console says in a week?

[Gary Lewis]

Peter - I'd rather not do that as I'm afraid it will cause confusion with my users - and my site isn't a bustling place as it is.

However, I have a Test Forum page, at Greg's recommendation, and we could do all sorts of testing there.  But, we need to set it up first.  For instance, I haven't made the forum.garysgaragemahal/test-forum change on it.  Further, I currently have it hidden from search engines so that will need to change.  And, you'd have to put the Google tracking code on it.  But, that shouldn't be an issue - right?

Also, there isn't much content, but there is a bit and we can certainly put more.  But that might make it easier as we won't have a lot of "stuff" to wade through.

Will this work?

[haozwang<Nabble>]

theoretically. it must have content on it though...

[Gary Lewis]

It has some content and I can easily put more on.

I've thought about using the "production" forum and really don't want to do so.  There are things on it, like the picture and the prayer, that make it obvious it isn't the same.  So I'd really rather use the test one.  Just tell me what to do and I'll do it.  And, I'll add more content to search for.

[haozwang<Nabble>]

okay, create an embed forums then

[Gary Lewis]

Peter - I already have an embedded forum called Test Forum, and it is at http://www.garysgaragemahal.com/test-forum.html.  And, it is still using the Nabble URL, as shown below.  That's what you want, right?

However, it is set up this way in the embedding options:

[haozwang<Nabble>]

okay gary, I have embbed the google meta tag and added you to the search console. put some content on the forum and you can ask if other forum members want to post their content

[Gary Lewis]

Thanks, Peter.  But there are only three of us - you, me, and my other admin.  However, I'll put some more content on to ensure there's plenty to find.

Having said that, I've not gotten a note from Google Analytics that I've been added.  Maybe in a bit?

[Gary Lewis]

The plot thickens.  I just did another Google search for "hopeless case of what Gary would call scope creep."  Here's the one from Google, which finds the phrase only in this thread on Nabble support and not on my forum where it originated.  But, for grins I just posted it on my Test Forum to see what will happen over time.




And here's the Bing result.  Note that Bing finds it on the Bullnose Forum, but hasn't found it here on the Nabble forum.  Also, note that all of the other "finds" are bogus, and shows why I don't use Bing, nor Yahoo for that matter, since they don't have a way to say "verbatim".  



And here's the results from Yahoo - basically the same as Bing but with slightly different bogus results.