Recently I helped a client move from shared hosting to dedicated hosting. As a result of the move, we had to establish a new IP. After the move, our traffic in Google decreased dramatically and are pages became partially indexed. Since then (about 6-8 weeks now) our pages in Google have been fluctuating like mad and most are still 'partially indexed'.

What gives? Can a change in IP trigger a re-indexing at Google?

At the same time we also re-engineered some of our URLs... not sure if this is causing it (new url, same content as before).

We have not employed any SEO trick techniques that could cause us to be banned, etc.

Thanks!

-Frank

Hi,

Changing IPs do not have a direct affect on rankings.

Google does not spider pages based on the IP address, it spiders pages based on the URL.

If your URLs changed, like you mentioned, it can take time to achieve good rankings with those new pages.

If you remember the old URLs, what you should set up are 301 redirects. They will tell Google and the other engines that the URL (page) that was at this location is now at this new location.

It seems like you canged a lot - beside IP: New server, changed pages (and more ...?). I don't think your problem is the IP but rather some of the other things

Google does not spider pages based on the IP address, it spiders pages based on the URL.


Unless I misunderstand you, that's not entirely correct: G spiders domains based on it's DNS cache. (this is well documented) so if you move to a new IP, you must be prepared to wait untill G refreshes their cache.

If you check the logs, you'll see that for quite some time G will spider the old IP before it 'refreshes' and get's to work on the new IP. This can be aided by putting a 301 on the old IP's root page.

Nick

Arhhh, you changed it before I posted DNS cache, not IP cache, 301 not 302 :)

Google claim they flush the cach once a week (last ime I talked with them about it about 6 month ago). I have had good success with leaving a copy of the old site under the old IP for a week or two to be sure the DNS is updated before closing down the old site. I don't like redirects :)

Even 301, as recommended (http://www.google.com/remove.html#change_url) by Google?
Cheers,
Johann

Yes, even better than 301's. My best advise: Do not blindly trust what Google tells you (or any other engine for that matter) unless you think they always want the best for you. I think a lof of us around here have made that mistake before :)

I have seen at least one major case where the 301s did not work the way Google claim it does. This site was out of the index for a year!

:eek: Scarry thought!

SEO is scarry :eek:

>>Arhhh, you changed it before I posted DNS cache, not IP cache, 301 not 302<<

Yeah, it's been quite a while since I last had to look at this ;) Had to re-check my facts!

>2wks

Well, it was a year or more when i last did it and it took 8wks for G to stop spidering the old, and spider the new. (btw, the advice about leaving the old site up is SPOT ON)

Nick

yes, Google is not the only "ISP" that dosen't update the DNS as frequently as I might like. Some users are hit by this too - you don't want to loose them either :)

Sorry for not being clearer. I was simply trying to keep it simple from what the member said.

Anyway, every ISP has a DNS cache - and Google, of course, has a DNS Cache.

But it seems to me the real issue here is that this member put up the same pages at new URLs. I was just trying not to confuse the issue.

The fact is, if I understand it correctly, Google still only looks at URLs. If the Google's DNS cache says the URL resolves at a specific IP address, then so be it. From my understanding, it requests the URL, the DNS looks up the IP and then it goes and fetches the pages. In that order. So, indirectly Google does look at IP address but just as any ISP would. Please correct me if I am wrong.

Yes, thats my understanding too. What Google does, crawling the web, is not very different (in this case) from what you do when you browse. If you ISP has not updated the DNS your request may resolve to servers that have been moved. That is why I suggest keeping a copu on the old IP, resolving to the original doman, for a few weeks so you make sure all users and bots get the pages even if their DNS is not fresh.

If you put up a redirect you tell them the pages has moved and they haven't really. I am not even sure how you would actually set up a redirect from a domain on the old IP to the same domain on a new IP without pointing to the "raw" IP rather than the domain. And, if you do so you risk that users bookmark the IP address and link to it rather than the domain. There is also a risk that search engines will index your site under the IP wich could lead to duplicate problems with the version indexed under the domain.

Mikkel,

Right. What we have done is leave up sites for 3 weeks or so. But as people hit the checkout process (if you have a checkout process), we forward all of that traffic to the new server. This way, we don't have orders on two different servers. I forgot some of the other tricks we used in the past, but they seemed to work well.

If your interested, I am sure I can pull up some of these old notes.

>>SEO is scarry :eek:

Thank you, I owe you for that one! :D

This does sound totally like more from changes on the site than the hosting change. If it's a dedicated IP, set up a link on a page that gets fresh dated using the IP number instead of the domain name.

Google crawls by domain name and IP number both is what I was told. Leaving up at both is a great solution but I haven't had that luxury with el cheapo virtual hosting. Not_a_problem, didn't skip a beat even once, and I've moved several sites and done several moves over the past several months.