What is the significance of being indexed or deindexed by Google?

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   Sally's Troveposted 12 years ago

   I created a Hub Question about this just a few minutes ago and was surprised to get so many responses so quickly.
   
   I think this question is on a lot of people's minds.
   
   Who can lend insight into what Google indexing / deindexing means, especially in this time of change where individual accounts on HP have been turned into subdomains?
   
   For example, one of my most trafficked Hubs (traffic coming almost exclusively from Google), even post-Panda, is now showing up as deindexed after I made the domain name switch. What does this mean?

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      thisisoliposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      De-indexed means that Google has no cached version of your page, it won't appear in search results.

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         Sally's Troveposted 12 years agoin reply to this

         What does a "cached version" mean?

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            thisisoliposted 12 years agoin reply to this

            By each search result in Google you will see the word Cached.  That is the record Google holds of that particular web address.

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               Sally's Troveposted 12 years agoin reply to this

               After three years of a Hub's existence, where almost all of its traffic has come from Google, how could it not now be "cached"?

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               Sally's Troveposted 12 years agoin reply to this

               Why would Google no longer have a record of that web address that it did have for years?

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            rebekahELLEposted 12 years agoin reply to this

            It's a snapshot of your original article as it appeared when the bots last crawled your page. Did you check your hub to see if it's still indexed under hubpages.com?

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               Sally's Troveposted 12 years agoin reply to this

               Obviously, yes. And that's why I'm asking this question.

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      lisabeamanposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      I'm glad you moved this to a forum... I saw the original question and wondered what kind of response that was going to get.
      
      I feel like I just got my brain wrapped around the idea of the panda update, but now all this talk of indexing, deindexing, and sub-domains have my head spinning again. I don't have any subdomain yet...at least not that I know of. Is that good? bad? Is it coming either way? If so, how will I know?

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         Sally's Troveposted 12 years agoin reply to this

         First, Lisa, you can elect to change your account to the new subdomain structure (there are plenty of other forum threads about this that will tell you how to do that) or you can do nothing, and around the end of this month the change will be made for you by HP.
         
         Second, I'm glad I moved this question to the forums, too. Although I'd like to see someone give this question the body and fullness it deserves, as in by writing a useful and informative Hub (which is why I posed the Question), I think that's unlikely to happen.
         
         So let's hang out here and see what happens with others contributing their thoughts and experiences.

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            lisabeamanposted 12 years agoin reply to this

            Agreed! And I hope your question gets the hub you're looking for. Thanks!

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               Sally's Troveposted 12 years agoin reply to this

               Me too! It would be good for all of us.

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      Baileybearposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      how do I know if individual hubs are indexed or not?

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         wildernessposted 12 years agoin reply to this

         Do a search for: site:baileybear.hubpages.com (or whatever your new subdomain is)   Any of your hubs that have the word "cached" after the URL is indexed.
         
         Alternatively, you can search for the individual URL and looked for the "cached".

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   Aficionadaposted 12 years ago

   Yesterday when I checked, my articles that showed up with the new subdomain address had "cached" next to them.  The same articles today do not.  What's the story on that?
   
   Also, the results number that it showed seemed to indicate (today) that all of my articles has been indexed, but the list only showed half of them.
   
   Would either of these oddities relate (as the cause) to the fact that my traffic numbers are not as great today as they were yesterday?

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      Sally's Troveposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      That's exactly what inquiry I'm after, Aficionada. What the hell does this mean?

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         Aficionadaposted 12 years agoin reply to this

         So are your numbers off somewhat today too?  I wasn't too happy about mine (today), except that Adsense was way up for me.  I wondered if the stats were stuck.  I haven't checked Analytics yet, though.

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            Sally's Troveposted 12 years agoin reply to this

            I never look at my HP stats day to day...I don't have that much volume that it matters to me, although some Hubbers do / did, because this is a money-making or networking opportunity for them.
            
            My numbers have been off since February 23. Where I had up to 500 views per day, I am now down to 100 or less, maybe now on a good day up to 150. AdSense has been pitiful since 2/23.
            
            I'm looking for the meaning of Google indexing. It just boggles my mind that a Hub of mine for two years brought in almost only Google traffic, and now, after the HP subdomain change, is not even indexed. I just don't understand this.

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      Aficionadaposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      
      Red-faced here.... sorry about that.
      
      I'm not very much accustomed to using Google.  I normally use Yahoo! or Bing.  So, when I checked before writing the above post I didn't recognize the Google method of announcing caching!  I only had to hover the cursor over the magnifying glass, and it opened a box that did identify the article as being cached.
      
      Whew!  Now, if I could just find those other articles of mine!  Where did they go?

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   Aficionadaposted 12 years ago

   Analytics wasn't stellar or abysmal either.  I think the stats in My Account may be temporarily stuck.  The graph of stats on My Profile doesn't match with the numbers.  I hope the graph is correct!

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      Sally's Troveposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      I'm not sure that looking at our individual stats is going to answer this question, although I think doing so will contribute to the answer.
      
      So I'm back to the original question...what does it mean to be not indexed by Google?

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         Aficionadaposted 12 years agoin reply to this

         As I understand it, it means that Google doesn't know the article exists.  Even though we get millions of hits of results when we run searches (on any topic), there are many more that exist somewhere on the web that Google doesn't include in its index for various reasons. And since they are not indexed, they would not show up in any search results, although someone who knows their address could just go straight to them. 
         
         I think that any Hubs that have been deindexed because of the subdomain change should actually be reindexed soon.  I certainly hope so!!! 

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            Sally's Troveposted 12 years agoin reply to this

            I hope so, too.

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         agvulpesposted 12 years agoin reply to this

         Sally before a webpage is 'cached' it is first 'indexed' by Google, which means that Google have found it.
         After a period of time Google then put the article into a 'bin' (for want of a better term)with a 'snapshot', to enable searchers to find the webpage quicker. This is the actual page that searchers find not the 'live' one that you may have just edited.
         As I have read somewhere in the Forums the Powers that Be say it may take a few? days for our new 'sub-domains' to all be re-indexed and then re-cached.
         I also believe that the 'old' urls are being redirected to the new addresses that we have all been given. I hope so We can only trust HP on this one?
         As someone famous once said 'it may not happen over night but it will happen. Cheers

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   Aficionadaposted 12 years ago

   The quick response to How to do it? = go to My Account; find and click on the Profile tab (top, nearly left); at the bottom of the list is "subdomains."  Click on that and it will walk you through the process. 
   
   You will probably need to answer some security questions, so have those handy (or be prepared to give some answers if you haven't done so already).
   
   Or, you can wait another week or two and it will be done for you, as Sally's Trove said.

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      lisabeamanposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      Thanks! I'll check into that. I suppose it's better to do it myself now than to have them do it for me later, right?

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   sunforgedposted 12 years ago

   Your address changed - it may take a few days for the postal service to recognize your change of address request

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      Sally's Troveposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      I do hope that's all it is. Yours is a helpful analogy. It does take a while for my local PO to catch up with my changes...like maybe a day or two. They're really good about this.

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      lisabeamanposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      Leave it to sunforged to take a complicated question and put the answer in plain english. That's why he's my hp hero!

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   Fiction Tellerposted 12 years ago

   Sally's Trove, I'm not sure what to say.  With all due respect, I don't think you and I are having the same conversation, and I'm getting more confused with each post.  I do get that I offended you, so I removed my contributions and shall now slink away back to the land of the lurkers.

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      Sally's Troveposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      FT, I agree that we were not having the same conversation. No offense taken, and if I offended you, it was not intentional.

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