pages have disappeared

hi,

the following pages (below), which have previously been listed under http://dmoz.org/Arts/Literature/Authors/W/, seem to have disappeared. When googling for Philip G Williamson, they no longer show. Have they been removed? If so, can I ask why? And can they be reinstated?

I would add that the pages come under www.hasweb.org, but HAS is a literary society dealing with many authors/filmmakers/composers etc, and pages contributed by individuals have always been successfully listed separately.

The pages are: http://www.hasweb.org/booksreviewspgw.html http://www.hasweb.org/pwtrav.html http://www.hasweb.org/notes31.html

thanks for any help

Only one of these pages was ever listed in ODP. We normaly don't list deeplinks (unless they have a lot of unique content). It was decided that the website of this author http://www.gormley.ndtilda.co.uk/PGW/ is a more appropriate source of information and it is now waiting review.

thanks for the reply, but it leaves me more confused. The Hasweb pages I referred to have, for up to the last three years, always been listed on Google and elsewhere under that name. They are non-fiction and more recent than the site you refer to, which was constructed by a fan and has not been updated for a long time. As they are one-off travel reviews, book reviews and lit crit, you could say they do actually contain unique relevant content.

Google's Directory Suggest-A-Site leads straight to ODP, and I originally submitted them through it and in due course they all appeared on Google without a problem. But now, suddenly, they're gone. So (I guess I'm possibly asking for more general advice here) how can I get them listed again? It's all a bit of a maze.

hasman said:

thanks for the reply, but it leaves me more confused. The Hasweb pages I referred to have, for up to the last three years, always been listed on Google and elsewhere under that name.

Click to expand...

We are not Google.
If you suggest a site through Google's Directory you are redirected to ODP. All 3 pages have been suggested to ODP. One has been listed for some time, the other 2 have been rejected (as I sayed we don't accept deeplinks as sugegstions).
We have no influence and knowledge about which pages can be found through Google search.

There seems to be a confusion here between Google's search engine and its directory. Sites and pages do not have to be listed in the Google Directory in order to appear in the Google search engine.

http://www.google.com/dirhp is copy of the Open Directory, which currently has over 4 million listings.

http://www.google.com currently has an index of over 8 billion web pages.

Here's how things work.

Case 1. Suppose the Open Directory lists example.com in a Shopping category. We wouldn't list a separate page for each product sold. We wouldn't separately list the contact page and the company profile and so on. Just the front door to the site. So that is exactly what will appear in the Google Directory. But along comes Googlebot and spiders the whole site. Someone looking for product X could find the relevant page from example.com with a keyword search on http://www.google.com/ .

Case 2. Suppose the Open Directory declines to list drossexample.com. It doesn't fit our guidelines. But Googlebot finds the site via a link to it from another site it knows about. It happily spiders the whole site, unless it has been barred by Google's own rules. Again it can be found in Google search.

Case 3. Suppose the Open Directory lists superbexample.org in a Science category. As it is a staggeringly content-rich site, thrilled editors list a couple of hundred deep links as well. But the site designer unintentionally blocks Googlebot by using techniques that the bot can't handle. Not a single page will appear in the Google search.

For more on the relationship see http://www.building-history.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/ODP/Dmoz.htm

thanks, that makes things a little clearer. However, I'm still stuck with the fact that the pages were, until recently, prominently displayed by Google on a search, and now have disappeared. I realise you are not Google, but I'm just fishing for an explanation and remedy, and as far as I can tell there's no method to query Google directly. I've made no changes to the pages, so there can't be anything the bot can't handle. Can anyone suggest how to get those pages listed again?

That really has nothing to do with the ODP. There are numerous forums devoted to All Things Search Enginish.

But even if it did: those pages haven't disappeared. They are still in the Google search, even if Spamazoners (etc.) have pushed them off the first page.

if they are still there, they're buried incredibly deep. I've checked 40 pages. Nothing. They were always on first/second/third pages.

Google has changed its search algorithms several times - sites have to keep up to keep on top. This is the wrong forum - you need a webmaster one where they discuss Google search optimisation - ODP is not connected to Google in any way except that they use our data, as do a hundred or more others. I have no doubt if you were to give your URL in one of those other forums someone could point out the reasons for the slippage in seconds.

just checked a couple of Google forums. Seems I'm not alone, which is something of a relief. Apparently google's done a major update this month, which has created many problems similar to mine (others more fortunate have found their site rankings leaping upwards for no obvious reason). The consensus seems to be its just a matter of waiting for it all to settle down.

thanks for the explanations and advice, all.

>others ... have found their site rankings leaping upwards

Yeah, the Peano axioms sort of imply something like that must be happening.