my HOST is not "Search Engine Friendly".

[Robban]

Two weeks ago my site was down overnite and SEs came visiting. My hard earned keyword page rankings are gone. That tread is still alive and I am looking for answers " Vanished from Google... H E L P" in the google section.

BUT in some replies it was suggested that my host GoDaddy.com is not very SEARCH ENGINE FRIENDLY which is very troubling to me and I appreciate the "warning". I would really like to know what does this mean? Which website hosts are Search Engine Friendly? SE traffic is very important to me and will be even more important in two other website concepts that I am about launch. Now I seriously would like to know if I need to dump GoDaddy.com and why? And I would like to know where to host for maximum Search Engine visibility etc. (including maximum uptime protection)

WebProWorld Rocks!

[cbp]

Are you sure the host being down is the reason you are gone from Google?

If the host was down "last night" and Google bot visited then, you do not normally get dropped that quick. What is your URL?

From what I understand the GoDaddy problem was solved last year and its not an ongoing problem.

CBP

[compar]

I agree with CBP. It is very unlikely that you site being down for one night is the reason. There was another major Google update about Jan 26. Are you sure you just didn't get dropped by this update.

As far as hosting servers being search engine friendly it is hard for me to see how they could not be. The technology that a search engines uses to crawl your page is essentially no different than what a browser -- IE or Netscape etc. -- use. So if you can find your site in a browser then the search engines won't have any problem finding it.

[Robban]

Thanks for your reply. Yes I am pretty sure that is the case. It coincided with both my site and godaddy's own site being down. Shortly after, my site www.fleege.com was gone from many key positions. And I have not recovered those Google rankings yet.

BUT Please. I have a tread for this if you have any other suggestions on this Google dilemma. I don't know how to copy a hotlink tread but its is in the google section called: Vanished from Google... H E L P

FOCUS:

What does search engine friendly mean? I know personally it should mean that your site doesnt go down but I am sure there is a lot more to it. Also can anybody else confirm that GoDaddy is Search Engine un-Friendly and how.

[cbp]

Your site is not gone from Google - it is still there, so its not a host or server issue.

CBP

[cbp]

GoDadday is not search engine unfriendly. Sites hosted on GoDaddy can and do rank well.

There was a problem last year (?maybe October?) in which all or most of the GoDaddy hosted got dropped from Google. GoDaddy denied a problem. Google denied a problem. Turned out that GoDaddy had done something on one of their DNS servers or routers that prevented Googlebot crawling them. This has been fixed and there are no new problems that I know of.

(BTW - this has nothing to do with domain name that are registered via GoDaddy)

CBP

[Mel]

Originally Posted by compar

I agree with CBP. It is very unlikely that you site being down for one night is the reason. There was another major Google update about Jan 26. Are you sure you just didn't get dropped by this update.

As far as hosting servers being search engine friendly it is hard for me to see how they could not be. The technology that a search engines uses to crawl your page is essentially no different than what a browser -- IE or Netscape etc. -- use. So if you can find your site in a browser then the search engines won't have any problem finding it.

If you really doubt that Compar, just let your site go down for a week and see where you are in Google.

There are fundamental differences between spiders and browsers, for an appreciation of the diference try using use a text only browser like Lynx for a few hours.

Hosting does make a difference to spiders, as for instance not serving the last modified date can result in getting fewer of your pages spidered, and in fact is one of the cautions on the Google webmasters page.

Or you may remember the GoDaddy fiasco a couple of months ago where nearly all of the Godaddy hosted site disappeared from Google because of some dumb stuff GoDaddy did with their servers?[/b]

[Robban]

I am confident that my lost rankings had to do with my site being down. I have had very little variation from week to week (only slight incremental improvements) and I have monitered and kept track of my positions for about 50 different searches. I am doing this because I am studying SEO for the purpose of launching 2 mainstream sites soon. And. yes I know I am not totally gone from google but if you'd see my ranking log you'd understand. My site was out on that January 26th day or very close to it. I wish I had noted the date.

It's funny how you always get answers opposite of what you ask for. In this posting I asked about GoDaddy and all about what web hosts can do to help and to hurt its clients, and all I get is answers and doubts about my Google rank dilemma. In my other post where I ask about my google dilemma all I get is suggestions and wisdom about hosting. Go figure. But thanks you Pros. I can assure you that I am reading (& using my brain) everyhting that is being written here at WebProWorld so keep it coming.

[minstrel]

LOL... I guess as long as you find answers to all your questions eventually, it doesn't matter where you find those answers ;o)

Here is the other thread Robban mentioned, by the way: Vanished from Google... H E L P

[compar]

[quote="Mel"]

Originally Posted by compar

I agree with CBP. It is very unlikely that you site being down for one night is the reason. There was another major Google update about Jan 26. Are you sure you just didn't get dropped by this update.

If you really doubt that Compar, just let your site go down for a week and see where you are in Google.

Mel,

Why are you picking on me? I didn't say a week. I said one night. If your site is down for a week it doesn't matter if it is in Google. Nobody will find it any way.

[Mel]

Hi Bob
You forgot this part of the quote which is the part I was addressing:

As far as hosting servers being search engine friendly it is hard for me to see how they could not be. The technology that a search engines uses to crawl your page is essentially no different than what a browser -- IE or Netscape etc. -- use. So if you can find your site in a browser then the search engines won't have any problem finding it.

[Robban]

So I guess there really is no such thing as search engine friendly per se as long as your hosts has its servers open for business. I did write a serious email to GoDaddy and wanting to get a report of their uptime/downtime during last month. We'll see what comes back? I have been quite happy with GoDaddy (despite their lack of customer service.) until this latest down trouble...

[minstrel]

This Free Web Site Monitoring Service will check your sites every 60 minutes and notify you by email if the site becomes unavailable and then again when it comes back online.

The free service allows you to monitor up to two sites. For a small fee, you can add additional sites, increase the frequency of monitoring, etc.

You might want to sign up for this to monitor GoDaddy's reliability for a while...

[Mel]

Great tip Minstrel.

I have been using this free service for over two years now and find it reliable and very useful.

Since its free, its also a great bargin.

[Robban]

Thanks for the hosting watch tip. The site says Free trial. Do you know if it will be free past the first 60 free trial days...?

Also. I wanted to update you all on my correspondance. GoDaddy did respond to my serious email but where not able to "give that information". Can you believe that? They were not able to comment on or confirm the fact that their own site and mine had been down. And I did check this through several browsers and sources. Anyway. I am sticking with them so far. For my next two bigger sites Hmm. still not sure. I started to look up some dirt on GoDaddy and it was quite easy to find. Nothing really about GoDady being Search Engine Unfriendly... My Quest continues.