wierd google cache

[Davevjr]

I found my site on google but when i look at the cached version of the site it is blank. Can anyone tell me why this is.

the url http://www.hardcorelibrary.net

[plateman]

the site is probably to new or banned

[cd34]

If I had to guess, I'd say that your html is broken and their parser is having a problem with it. You open a <a> have an image (which is what appears to have been cached), a <br> and then open another <a>.

You might take a stab at cleaning up the html -- perhaps that will help.

[Bill]

It's not that unusual.

I didn't check your source, but first be sure you didn't include the no cache tag.

But what it probably means is that google hasn't spidered your site often enough to give it enough age to warrant a cache.

I gather google's new patent talks about ways to filter sites by age and traffic, in effect the so-called "sandbox" penalty. But these parts of the new patent have other implications, and may be what causes some of the recent surge in "url only" listings, and stuff like your not having a cached page.

Bottom line is, google is ranking and listing sites with an emphasis on age and history now. In time your site will show a cache.

(unless you have the no cache tag on it...)

[Leon]

it is also possible that google visited this page while it was rebuilding or was empty for some reason wait for a few days it might get updated

i tell you one thing it is not banned otherwise it wont appear in search at all and wont have any cached page

[DangerDave]

1. Google has spidered your site
2. Google does have your site in its cache-(from the 20 Apr 2005 04:39:24 GMT.)
3. Your cache is not blank
4. You site is "freshly" added(eg: Google has looked once and will be back)
5. Your site is not banned


The person that can tell me how I know and proves the point.... gets to make me a cup of coffee.....

DD

[Bill]

C'mon Dave, don't play hard to get... ;-}

I have an idea, but it's not in my biz plan to focus on that kind of technical detail.

You can't monetize what's in, or not in, the google cache.

And everyone should know, making money off the search engines takes time and patience. New domains have to be allowed to age and grow.

[Davevjr]

Originally Posted by DangerDave

1. Google has spidered your site
2. Google does have your site in its cache-(from the 20 Apr 2005 04:39:24 GMT.)
3. Your cache is not blank
4. You site is "freshly" added(eg: Google has looked once and will be back)
5. Your site is not banned


The person that can tell me how I know and proves the point.... gets to make me a cup of coffee.....

DD

about no. 2 my site just went up this month. I had the domian already but it wasn't in use. the google bot has been detected in my stats 3 times so shouldn't show my site?
|king|

[DangerDave]

and now you have two caches

as retrieved on 20 Apr 2005 04:39:24 GMT
and
as retrieved on 26 Jun 2005 04:43:13 GMT.


Bill it aint technical.. just need a browser, a google bar and a keyboard/mouse.

making money off the search engines takes time and patience. New domains have to be allowed to age and grow.

- Amen

DD

[Bill]

Well, now, I get the usual cache of the page, which wasn't appearing before, or rather, wasn't appearing the last time I took a look for it.

Now you get:
This is G o o g l e's cache of http://www.hardcorelibrary.net/ as retrieved on Jun 26, 2005 04:43:13 GMT.

Did you see a regular cache of the page when you first looked at it Dave?

When I first looked at it, there was the "There is no cache of this page" message and a blank white page. Well, blank except for the standard google cache box at the top.

[Davevjr]

yeah first time i checked it was blank but it has updated.
also why is google so fucking slow to find sites linking to you?

[Leon]

well google isn't so slow finding sites that linking to you its just slow to show it to public but if you intrested in fasted "cached" updates etc.. get more links to your site, as for Back Links update its hardly do them once a month lately so you will have to be more patient when playing in google game

[Linkster]

DDave - that page sure looks familiar

BTW - that toolbar sure makes it easy LOL

And for those still stuck on this "sandbox" thingy - Google was asked specifically during their talk with engineers thing in New Orleans - and stated categorically - THERE IS NO SANDBOX!

[neveremail]

Originally Posted by Linkster

DDave - that page sure looks familiar

BTW - that toolbar sure makes it easy LOL

And for those still stuck on this "sandbox" thingy - Google was asked specifically during their talk with engineers thing in New Orleans - and stated categorically - THERE IS NO SANDBOX!

So do you beleive that there really is no sandbox.

[Bill]

Now Linkster, I know that Google has said that there is no sandbox...

But did you read Jil Whalen's recent newsletter where she says that upon reading Google's new patent, she says that one part of the patent _IS_ an ageing penalty, indistinguishable from the sandbox?

This was kinda startling to me, and it is part of what I based my comment about " in effect the so-called "sandbox" penalty".

[Linkster]

Bill - I dont read her stuff anymore as its usually prepared for the masses - and usually doesnt reflect the underlying stuff that sher really knows

I saw the patent - and I believe that they have a part of the algorithm that does age-justify domains that are expired, had a previous listing on DMOZ and might have previous backlinks. As a matter of fact I believe they have stated that they do place a zeroing effect on those type of domains the best they can - and will do a better job of it once they have their full registrar system running (they were approved as a registrar recently)

As far as a sandbox - no I dont believe there is one - and can actually prove that there isnt as if there was it would have to follow certain mathematical rules - and it would apply to all freshly registered domains - and with domains that have never been registered ever - I can still get them into the top listings with no problem.
Of course with the domains that have been owned before its tougher - but that has more to do with the expired domain penalty - not a sandbox.

Most people that call what they are experiencing a "sandbox" just havent been around long enough or had enough experiences to see other causes - I usually say they havent gotten to the swingset yet

[Bill]

Linkster, my opinion of Jil Whalen is similar to yours- that is, most of the stuff in her newsletter and website is just too obvious to be worth reading closely.

But, she's pretty conservative, and not usually wrong when it comes to basic technical stuff, so when she said "Hey, it looks like the new patent implies there is a sandbox after all...", well, I think that opinion is worth considering.

I myself haven't read the patent, and don't really plan to.

The "sandbox", if it exists or not, has never affected my bottom line. When I buy a domain my first step with it is to set up some basic themed content on it, and let it sit for a year to collect some age.

So, if there ever was a sandbox I would never know about it. I can't say I've ever seen it, don't have direct experience with it, and I've never measured it.

So I've been a "sandbox agnostic" - I don't care wether or not it might exist.

But here's what she says about it - it certainly sounds like she believes it exists:

"I wasn't surprised about the stuff in the patent that corresponded with Google's aging delay and its "sandbox" as I had already seen a lot of discussion on this. For those who aren't familiar with the aging delay and the sandbox, you'll want to note that there is a lot of disagreement over what causes a site to be thrown in the sandbox.

However, based on my own observations and the experiences of some
trusted SEO friends, it's my belief that the sandbox is basically a purgatory database where Google places certain URLs based on a variety of predetermined criteria. (Much of this is spelled out in the first part of the patent application.)

The aging delay, on the other hand, is actually a subset of the
sandbox. In other words, the aging delay is just *one* reason why a URL might get placed in the sandbox.

Basically, if you have a brand new domain/website, it will
automatically land in the sandbox regardless of anything that you do with it. Your new website will be stuck there for an unspecified period of time (averaging around 9 months these days) and it will not rank highly in Google for any keyword phrases that might bring it any decent traffic. Yes, it can sometimes rank highly for the company name, or the names of the people who run the company. It may also show up in Google for a few additional phrases that other sites are not focusing on within their content. But new domains will not show up in Google's natural results for even slightly competitive keyword phrases until they are removed from the sandbox.

Other reasons why a site might be placed in the sandbox go beyond the aging delay. Google's major algorithm upheavals such as the recent one dubbed "Bourbon" by the folks at WebmasterWorld, show all too clearly that old domains can also be placed in the sandbox, under the right (or in this case wrong) circumstances. Nobody can really say for sure what the criteria is, but Google's patent does give us some insight into what some of them might be."

Jil Whalen from the HighRankings newsletter

[DangerDave]

What linkster said...

There is no 'sandbox'.

..and additionally.. IMO any publically purported theory of Google's inner workings is rarely more than the writer wanting to hear their own voice..

DD

[Bill]

Now c'mon Dave, that's just an argument by assertion, and it gets canceled out by the growing number of voices in mainstream that seem to be saying the sandbox does exist.

Like I said before, I've been agnostic, and had no opinion about the "sandbox".

But I've been reading around a bit, and Jil Whalen isn't the only mainstreamer that seems to be saying "Okay, the sandbox does exist...".

I don't care if it exists or not. But if you are going to say it don't exist, you should also say _why_ you think it don't exist.

[DangerDave]

Bill,

If anyone choses to believe that it exists... then they are entitled to that opinion

But as usual.... unless they are a Google employee with knowledge of the inner workings, then as always, it's just an opinion, maybe a "supported" opinion.. but it it rarely a proven fact...

So if I am asked to disprove an unproven fact.. I will decline.. as any "argument" will again be just an opinion.

There is no ONE theory of what 'the sandbox' is and or how it functions, and as I said they are all just theories.

I believe it would not be hard for one of these people to "prove" or "disprove" the theory by grabbing a domain and opening a site, and testing the theory... but have they? Not that I am aware of?

Fact: - I got a new domain
Fact: - I targetted specific (and somewhat competitive) keywords.
Fact: - It got PR(for what its worth) on the first PR update.
Fact: - it is ranked(quite well) for its targetted keywords. - less than 3 mths after it went live.
Fact: - I have neglected it since I sent it live - and therefore believe it would be far better ranked if I had continued to improve it.

So where is the "sandbox"?

My THEORY is that these people are creating CRAP sites, and ignoring the fundamentals of what Google believes "IS" a good/decent/quality site, and then winging that they aren't number one for a competitive keyword..

The sandbox theory is just their way of avoidng the responsibility for creating crap and promoting it the wrong way..

DD

[Linkster]

Bill - I have to agree with Dave on this one - mainly because I've done exactly the same thing with a brand new domain - now I have seen a time delay on domains that were previously owned - I usually check the whois namespinner to see as the records in archive.org arent that trustworthy. But with a good basic site of content, and no other influences, I have never had more than a 2 update delay in getting high rankings for the targetted phrases. And I believe that is exactly the same delay that I have always seen and just has to do with linkbacks and page rank calcs.

Remember that one other thing that contributes to this "theory" of the sandbox is, in addition to the crap that most of these people bitch about not ranking with (the script generated 50k of page sites with 10k backlinks overnight) there are also the group of newer WMs that havent seen a normal Google update "cycle" so they dont know that waiting 8 weeks to be included in the index, another 2 months to rank well and maybe as much as a month for the addition to their index of new backlinks providing effects - is a very normal path to ranking well - they think it should be overnight - just like that wealth they expect to show up in their bank accounts tomorrow

[Bill]

Well, my experience is roughly the same as yours, which is, other than pages selected by the "freshbot", it takes 8 to 12 weeks for a domain to settle in at it's baseline ranking position. Which is roughly the same length of time it's been for the last four years.

Not that I actually time it, this is just the impression I get, because, as I said, I believe in letting domains age a bit before I really start developing them.

So, two more questions:

1. Do you guys see language about "ageing delays" and anti-spam delays in the new patent?

(I haven't read it, so I don't know if there are or are not.)

(cd34, Sparky, I think you said you read it, did you see anything about "ageing"??...)

and 2. Why is Jil Whalen, Queen of the White Hats, talking about the sandbox like this?

"it's my belief that the sandbox is basically a purgatory database where Google places certain URLs based on a variety of predetermined criteria. (Much of this is spelled out in the first part of the patent application.)

The aging delay, on the other hand, is actually a subset of the
sandbox. In other words, the aging delay is just *one* reason why a URL might get placed in the sandbox."

Is she just an idiot or what?

[neveremail]

I only know the basics of SEO but from what I gather from your conversation is that you all seem to follow the process of "ageing" a domain before developing it. So to me (being a bit ignorant about advanced SEO) it would seem that whether there is a sandbox or not is irrelevant as both sides do exactly the same and "age" a domain.

However what I would like to know from you guys is when you put a domain up with some basic content and then let it age before you develop it properly why dont you just try and develop it as soon as it goes up. I understand there is a delay in seeing SE results on that site but sooner or later they will catch up with your efforts (am i right??) so could you not just start working on your site right away bearing in mind that there will be a delay of 2-3 months before SEs start to recognise you?

[Linkster]

neveremail - I havent seen a difference whether I develop the domain the day I buy it or if I wait - it works exactly the same and has for years as Bill stated

Bill - as far as language in the patent - Ill look around to see if I can find any and get back

As far as Jil - that kind of "garbage writing" is meant for the masses - I could have said the same by saying that Google uses all kinds of algorithmic tactics on a newly purchased domain that makes it difficult for someone that wants to spam with a domain and makes them wait a while
My opinion as I stated before is that there is no delay with a fresh domain - with a previously owned domain there are some hurdles to overcome to make sure that you arent going to try to benefit from a domains previous attributes. Which again has been around since the "DMOZ expired" buying craze and was a defensive move that Google saw a need for - otherwise a domain takes just as long to get in and rank as it always has.

[Linkster]

Bill - after muddling through the first parts of the patent it sounds very much like a system I think they have been using for a long time - it basically takes the average growth of a site and looks at how fast a newly found domain grows, how often the pages really change, how often womeone searching for that specific info chooses an old doc versus a new one, etc etc.
Basically I think they are just writing up some of the averaging factors they have buit in to the algo over the last few years based on their link tracking theyve been doing and bringing in some of the preventative measures theyve added to control script generated sites - but I sure dont see anything that would lead me to a sandbox let alone a playground like some of these people have in their minds