Google is ranking us well but is supplying the wrong link for our keyword phrases.

[gasmith]

Howdy,

One of my clients is experiencing an odd problem at Google. They rank well for a keyword search term but the Link presented as the title of the search term is wrong and goes to the wrong page.

The term "david frykman" brings up my client in the #2 spot but the link does not point to the actual "David Frykman" page. It points to a different page on the site that is the "Thanksgiving" Category with no "david frykman" on it at all.

Wrong page:
www.tannenbaumholidayshop.com/miva/merchant.mvc?Screen=CTGY&Store_Code=THS&Category_Code=T

Correct page:
www.tannenbaumholidayshop.com/miva/merchant.mvc?Screen=CTGY&Category_Code=DFF

Samething happens for "colonial candles" we are 15th but the page the search result popints to is the "Halloween" category page. Not the "Colonial Candles" page.

Wrong page:
www.tannenbaumholidayshop.com/miva/merchant.mvc?Screen=CTGY&Category_Code=H

Correct page:
www.tannenbaumholidayshop.com/miva/merchant.mvc?Screen=CTGY&Category_Code=CAN

There are several other examples of terms where we art in the top 10 but have the search link pointing to the wrong "Halloween" page.

Note also that for many other items like "his story bracelet" (#2 and #3) we not only rank well but the link page is correct within the same store.

Any ideas? How can I alert Google?

Main domain:

www.tannenbaumholidayshop.com

and a Miva store at:

www.tannenbaumholidayshop.com/miva/merchant.mvc

Thanks,

Greg

[gasmith]

Anyone got any ideas on this? Been expecting replies.

Greg

[Robert_Charlton]

greg - Curious and curiouser. I haven't looked at this in depth... didn't do any url header checks, so I can't rule out 302s somewhere. That might be the problem, but I'm guessing not.

Offhand, I'd say it's a Google glitch and that it will probably disappear in a week or less. I've seen this happen a few times over the years to sites I optimize, but never this consistently on one site.

I would send Google some feedback... probably via their "are you satisfied with these results?" feedback form... and introduce your note with a summary saying that you're seeing titles and descriptions from your site showing up for the wrong urls, also from your site, and you think there's an indexing error they may want to track down. That should get their attention... they like to keep their infrastructure working.

[Marcia]

"david frykman" appears once on the thanksgiving page, in the left navigation, according to the cache (http://66.102.7.104/search?q=cache:a6DpgHEyTbQJ:www.tannenbaumholidays hop.com/miva/merchant.mvc%3FScreen%3DCTGY%26Store_Code%3DTHS%26 Category_Code%3DT+david+frykman&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=4)

Same thing for "colonial candles" it appears once in the left navigation plus the word candles in another nav link - shows up in the cache (http://66.102.7.104/search?q=cache:5Pgoi4vGssIJ:www.tannenbaumholidays hop.com/miva/merchant.mvc%3FScreen%3DCTGY%26Category_Code%3DH+c olonial+candles&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=15)

Maybe Google Sitemaps would help along.

Added:

His story bookmark is linked to from the homepage, and when you get to the bookmark page it links to the his story bracelet page - making it two clicks away from the homepage. Plus, it doesn't appear in the main navigation.

[dannysullivan]

Exactly as Marcia said, but I'll spell it out even further.

The term "david frykman" brings up my client in the #2 spot but the link does not point to the actual "David Frykman" page. It points to a different page on the site that is the "Thanksgiving" Category with no "david frykman" on it at all.

As she notes, the "wrong" page actually does have the text "david frykman" on it. When you say the "correct" page, that suggests that Google is making a mistake and should be showing the other page you're pointing at. That's your opinion -- and to be fair -- probably the opinion of many others. But what Google's doing isn't necessarily wrong.

You did a search, and it found a page that is at least somewhat relevant for that topic. With any search engine, you simply cannot hope to control exactly which page they decide to list.

When you say someting is "wrong," it implies a glitch, an error, something where the URLs are actually mixed up. In this case, it's a relevancy issue. It's not that Google's "wrong" but rather that it's not showing the most relevant results.

That's what you need to raise. In a search for "david fykman," Google's selected a page from your site that only mentions him once, rather than a dedicated page to all of his products. It's not making the most relevant selection.

Now the downside is that if Google does some tweaking, there's not guarantee that EITHER of your pages ranks well.

I didn't look at the other examples but hung with your david one. The more specific page is all about David Frkyman Figures. I thought it should have a pretty good chance of ranking well for [david frkyman figures]. Instead, I got a link to your Halloween shop. Odd!

This made me think that it's probably not Google that's all screwed up but more likely some of your more relevant pages aren't indexed.

I put that "correct" page URL into my browser, went to the page, then used the Google toolbar to see the cached copy. Voila -- no cached copy, so it's not in the index. But then I tried the same thing for the "wrong" page -- no cached copy as well. And that's freaky weird, because doing a "david frykman" search brings up that page ranking well AND gives me a cached link to it.

With the colonial candles example, both pages ARE indexed. Looking at them quickly, a few things:

The "right" page not ranking well uses a meta keywords tag and says colonial several times in it. Google's not supposed to use that tag for ranking. But possibly, they are looking at it for spam clues. The repetition isn't that bad to me, but maybe it's putting them off. Or maybe not.

You also have a description tag -- again, some repetition there, but again, nothing I think is bad. In fact, I think it's good you have this tag.

The title also has repetition, still not something I think should cause the page to be lower ranked, but you never know.

The body text also says your terms more than the other page.

Overall, some might decide that Google's given you what's sometimes called an Over Optimization Penalty, deciding that the page is too targeted to that term, so it won't trust it.

Before you go out stripping down your pages, hang in there. While as I said, Google can and will rank whatever it wants, this is poor relevancy. There are better pages in your site it should be ranking. It might very well be a glitch with them. Did your other pages rank better before?

[Robert_Charlton]

Offhand, I'd say it's a Google glitch....

My mistake in using the word "glitch" on this one.... I too only looked at the David Frykman page and was too hasty in attributing the snippet to the headline on the "David Frykman Figures" page. I have seen Google mix up titles and snippets on serps, but it's been rare and never fatal. As Danny and Marcia point out, that's not what's going on here.

[gasmith]

Hi all,

I am glad to see some activity on this issue. I still believe this to be a Google issue.

Just noticed another one:

peggy karr glass

Again, Google shows the same Halloween Category page in the results. Peggy Kar Glass is only on this page once.

The correct Peggy Karr Glass page has the term several times in both the intro paragraph and as the products under that category.

The main issue is that these pages used to be properly listed under their appropriate categories and properly indexed for the appropriate keywords. Something changed and the Halloween page shows instead.

Thanks again,

Greg

[gasmith]

Hi again,

One more note. This whole issue began about mid to late June. Something changed at that time where, almost overnight, all the pages that were ranked well were replaced, in the same search ranking position they had been in, with the inappropriate page. Does anyone know of a change made at that time that could have sffected many of these pages with the same issue?

Thanks,

Greg

[Marcia]

The change of pages that are being returned is more than likely due to an algo change. And about the mid-June change timing, there was a big update/data refresh on June 27th with a lot of people either getting hit or boosted.