Google Doesn't Find My Forum's Content

[haozwang<Nabble>]

gary, you should see the test forum when you go on the search console now

[Gary Lewis]

Peter - Thanks, I do.  And I've submitted the Test Forum to be indexed.  Will let you know when it is.

[Gary Lewis]

Greg - I think that your statement is significant:

    As an aside to Gary and Peter:
    Try as I might I could not find Steem711's site with a variety of Google searches, but I came up trumps with Bing first
    try!
    https://colonialwaterbirdprogram.weebly.com/discussion.html
    It does suggest that Google thinks the site is embedded even if Nabble doesn't!

Should I say Bing?  Or, is that Bingo?  

[GregChapman]

It's worth pointing out that your quote comes from:
http://support.nabble.com/Is-there-a-way-to-have-my-forum-ie-threads-and-posts-on-my-page-tp7599789p7599851.html
where a Weebly user has apparently correctly embedded a forum but only sees a link to his forum on his site, while his Embedding Option page shows that Nabble thinks it is not embedded (no Redirect to: option)

Where things differ from this topic is that Google is not even finding the Weebly site let alone the "embedded" forum. I haven't yet developed a theory on how these two situations relate but it seems likely to be something to do with the embedding code and how Google responds to it. I have no idea if  Google has changed things recently or if some of Franklin's recent tweaks to Nabble might have something to do with Google no longer crawling embedded Nabble forums.

[Gary Lewis]

Thanks for clearing that up.  Further, that both Bing and Yahoo do find the sites.

[Gary Lewis]

Houston - We are zeroing on on the problem!  I did the Google search again and it found the sentence "My 4-door diesel project has a hopeless case of what Gary would call scope creep."  The result of the search is below, but in order for my other findings and surmises to be seen I'll put them up here.

First, Google finds the sentence in three places - two here in this thread, and one in my Test Forum.  But, if you click the link under "New Members" in the search results you go to the Nabble version of my Test Forum and not the one that looks like it is on my website.

I've included two pics to explain what I mean by the latter statement.  The first shows the "N" in the tab, which means it is the Nabble view of my Test Forum.  But the second shows the "Bullnose" icon, so it is via my website.

And, that same phrase has still not been found on my production forum, in spite of it having been there for about 4 months.  However, Google found it on my Test Forum in less than 2 days as I posted it on the 28th at 3:45 PM.

[GregChapman]

Hi Gary,

I may have missed something, in your conclusion that you are getting somewhere. So far, it seems to me, everything is as expected.

Your test forum is not embedded and we already know that only embedded forums don't get indexed - or at least those forums that Google thinks are embedded because of the presence of the embedding code

On top of that we know that Google seems to fail to index even a main site, when when there is Nabble embedding code on the site AND for some reason - as yet not determined - that Nabble doesn't recognise that it is embedded.
(steem711's is in that category) .

So for Google to find and index your test forum within a couple of days seems entirely to be expected.

What will be more interesting is - if you now embed your test forum somewhere (other than your GarageMahal site) and see how long it takes to disappear from Google's index. That might confirm that it it really is the presence of the embedding code that causes Google's problems

I could try to embed it in a site of mine if that would help?

(Late here now! I'm off to bed!)

[Gary Lewis]

But, it is embedded, albeit on my Garagemahal.  Here's a shot from my Weebley editor.  What am I missing?

[GregChapman]

Then perhaps It's the "Redirect to:" that's kills the indexing.

(In bed 01:30 and time for sleep!

[Gary Lewis]

That's what I'm thinking - redirect.  That is the main difference, although not the only, between the Bullnose and Test forums.  And one doesn't work and one does.  

You'll see this before I'm up (hope you get some sleep), and I will check at 6:30 CDT which, if I remember from my time on Ole Blightly, is 12:30 yours.

[GregChapman]

OK! Let's see what happens to this forum:
http://www.gregchapman.me.uk/muddybroadbluesband.co.uk/forum.html

(Background to URL: I used to play in a band with its own domain which has been allowed to expire, but the files are still on the server. We had a forum for internal communications, so "Smart Pages" is set to make all sub-forums invisible even to registered users. The only area casual visitors had access to was the "News" sub-forum, but the only three links on the main site that went to it pointed at the Subscription page for that sub-forum, so except for the truly curious who clicked on the appropriate link, no one even saw the list of previous emails.)

Until just now the entire forum was set to Redirect to the above link (which is where I told band members to go to access our private conversations).

Before I tweaked the forum this Google search got this:

One interesting thing about the  first result is that while it gives the Nabble URL for the page (green text), the snippet (black text) taken from the page in which it is embedded, forum.html. I haven't worked out the implications of this, but I suspect it is highly relevant.

Now I have removed the redirect from the top level of the forum, but re-instated the redirect on all sub-forums except "News". I had to remove the redirect from the top-level of the forum as I discovered that embedding is inherited by sub-forums, so simply setting "News" not to redirect did not work. It inherited the redirect set for its parent. However, if you do have a redirect set at the top-level and a redirect to a different page for a sub-forum that does work.

If I start to see a change in the results of the above search that should confirm that it is the Redirect that causes the problems. (Still no ideas about Steem711's issues).

[Gary Lewis]

My head hurts!  I think I understand that it is significant that Google found the snippet from the page but directed you to Nabble.  I'm just not sure how that happens.

What does Bing or Yahoo find?

Also, do you have Google tracking code on that page?  And, have you re-submitted it to be indexed?  I did on my Test Forum and it took less than two days before it was found.

As for steem711, might he have multiple levels of applications and doesn't have re-direct set at the top and is trying to re-direct a lower level?

[GregChapman]

Gary Lewis wrote

My head hurts!  I think I understand that it is significant that Google found the snippet from the page but directed you to Nabble.  I'm just not sure how that happens.

It seems to say that in spite of the search being set for an embedded forum only, but as that page gets redirected (did at the time Google indexed it) and delivered as the resulting page, it then picks up the main page text, but why it does when the search only asked it to deliver the embedded forum data is what I'm not sure about. I think my head hurts too! :-)

What does Bing or Yahoo find?

Both got an exact copy of the Google's second entry.  
As suggested by the URL, the forum Home page, as displayed to unregistered visitors. Interestingly, and exactly like Google all three display the naked unembedded forum home page.  But in many ways that might have been what I would expect, given that the terms I used excluded the possibility of revealing the page in which it was embedded.

Also, do you have Google tracking code on that page?  And, have you re-submitted it to be indexed?  I did on my Test Forum and it took less than two days before it was found.

No tracking code. Forum re-submitted to be indexed, but not the site in which it is embedded, as I am really quite happy for that site to die.

As for steem711, might he have multiple levels of applications and doesn't have re-direct set at the top and is trying to re-direct a lower level?

I'm leaving you to work on that one. I have no know knowledge of tips and tricks for Weebly.

[Gary Lewis]

I wasn't thinking that steem711's issue has anything to do with Weebly.  Rather, that if he has layered Nabble applications and doesn't have the top-level one re-directed then maybe, given what you've seen, he can't re-direct the second level?

[GregChapman]

When I last looked at his forum it appeared to be a single level and completely empty. Perhaps we need to ask a few more questions in the right topic.

[Gary Lewis]

Peter - I really do need the Bullnose Forum to be indexed by Google.  And it is pretty sure that the problem is somehow linked to the re-directing since Google has indexed over 100 pages when crawling my little bitty Test Forum, which isn't re-directed.

In other words, my forum isn't visible to the world's largest search engine, and I'm struggling to get the world to find it.

So can we get some help on this, please?  

[GregChapman]

Indeed, Gary, on top of SSL, this is becoming a serious issue for all embedded forums on Nabble.

It's really annoying that it used to work but hasn't for at least six months.

[Gary Lewis]

Yup.  I have people advertising things that cannot be found.  

[haozwang<Nabble>]

Hi Gary, a hack has been implemented where google bots will not be redirected from the forum. I have already requested indexing of your page

[Gary Lewis]

Peter - Great!  Is this for all embedded sites?  And, did you request it for Test or the Bullnose forum?

Edit - I see that you did forum.garagemahal and Test.  But I submitted the home page.  We shall see.