Information on Google needed Please

[GAViN™©]

Have recently been making changes to the filenames of the html product pages on our website.

Up until now, the product html pages have just had the product code incorporated into the filename of the page.

http://www.dutchwest.co.uk/acatalog/aj5100.html

Which is fine, but I wanted to include relating keywords to the filenames so for example:

http://www.dutchwest.co.uk/acatalog/philips-aj5100-dab-desktop-digital-radio.html

I have resubmitted the Sitemap through Google Webmaster Tools which tells me that it was downloaded 30mins ago.

Webmaster Tools also tells me that Googlebot last successfully accessed our home page on Mar 25, 2008. Am assuming that the site is due a google crawl shortly.

How long will it take roughly before these new links start showing up on google searches? - As the old links are still currently showing.

Unfortunately we have not been able to do an error301 redirection for these product pages, as we use windows hosting and cannot do this through a .htaccess file.


Thanks

[leehack]

How many of them and how deep are the pages in the site structure? It could be months and months until all are updated, you will also lose any backlinks to the old pages once they disappear. These things do not happen quickly at all.

[GAViN™©]

Not quite sure what you mean Lee about how deep are the pages in the site structure?

I'm assuming this is what you mean ...

The pages go like this:

Alarm Clocks [Section]
Product [Sub Section]
Product html page with features/image/text

???

[leehack]

That's correct, how many clicks (how deep in other words) is it to get into your products. Some products sit at levels 5,6,7 or 8 on big sites. The deeper the structure, the longer these changes take as the deeper it is, the less it is visited IME.

[GAViN™©]

Ah right. So really to get to these new product html pages, its like two clicks in from the main page.

So i'm assuming then that the page is not as deep as some websites and therefore will not take as long for google to find?

As I mentioned above it was March since Google accessed the site, am I right in saying that next time Google spiders the site, these changes should be made?

I'm not 100% sure as to how it works, so pardon my ignorance

[leehack]

Ah right. So really to get to these new product html pages, its like two clicks in from the main page.

A max of 3 clicks used to be the aim, this is not so easy to do nowadays, but keeping things to the minimum possible is best for all concerned.

So i'm assuming then that the page is not as deep as some websites and therefore will not take as long for google to find?

Its not just a case of site structure, there are many factors involved. A 20 deep structure on amazon would probably get spidered quicker than a 3 deep little corner site. The less depth there is, the less time it takes in general IME, which is logical really as it is smaller site, however site size has to be factored in also as busy sites gets spidered more.

As I mentioned above it was March since Google accessed the site, am I right in saying that next time Google spiders the site, these changes should be made?

If it has been 2 months since your last visit, i'd suggest something is up, admittedly i have not looked at stats for a month or so, but busy sites are visited on a daily basis IME. If you are visited on a 3 monthly basis, i'd suggest that there is probably something far worse than your page names affecting things.

I'm not 100% sure as to how it works, so pardon my ignorance

Only Google is Gavin, the rest is just a mix of conjecture, experience, discussion and plain old bullshit. SEO is about learning what not to do, rather than what to do IMO, as the bad has the worse effect.

[GAViN™©]

Hi Lee,

If it has been 2 months since your last visit, i'd suggest something is up, admittedly i have not looked at stats for a month or so, but busy sites are visited on a daily basis IME. If you are visited on a 3 monthly basis, i'd suggest that there is probably something far worse than your page names affecting things.

This has me concerned now
What do you recommend I should do in this situation?

Google is saying there is no errors in my Webmaster Tools account.

[Mike Hughes]

This has me concerned now
What do you recommend I should do in this situation?

Learn how to read your stats?

This is Google's cache of http://www.dutchwest.co.uk/acatalog/shc8525.html as retrieved on 5 May 2008 06:12:59 GMT.

Mike

[leehack]

TSK Gavin, you are so fired!

[GAViN™©]

Learn how to read your stats?
Mike

Mike, where are you getting that info from ?

[GAViN™©]

TSK Gavin, you are so fired!

Haha, nice one Lee

[Mike Hughes]

Do a search for 'site:www.yourdomain.co.uk' in google and it will show you the pages it has in it's index. Click on the 'Cached' link Google shows beside the urls and it will show you the page and the date that it was indexed.

Mike

[GAViN™©]

Do a search for 'site:www.yourdomain.co.uk' in google and it will show you the pages it has in it's index. Click on the 'Cached' link Google shows beside the urls and it will show you the page and the date that it was indexed.

Mike

Ahh ok thanks Mike.
The date I got at the top of this thread was from Google Webmaster Tools, which stated last time the homepage was indexed was March, 2008.

Key word there being "homepage"...

I should learn to take more notice

[Mike Hughes]

there might be a problem with webmaster tools. A search for 'dutchwest' brings up the homepage with cached date of:

This is G o o g l e's cache of http://www.dutchwest.com/ as retrieved on 8 May 2008 05:05:49 GMT.

[GAViN™©]

there might be a problem with webmaster tools. A search for 'dutchwest' brings up the homepage with cached date of:

This is very weird.
Our correct website is the .co.uk domain but if i do a search for that on google

http://www.google.co.uk/search?aq=f&...G=Search&meta=

It comes up with the .com domain (which is a parked domain).

Not sure why here but google is not picking up our homepage