I just saw something really bizarre in my raw logs.

Google, according to the log, brought a visitor to Site A that usually comes from Site B. Site B has top 10 ranking for the search phrase; whereas Site A has none of the keywords, and never brought any visitors before for those keywords.

Both sites are on the same server. Either the raw logs got their wires crossed (which I have never seen before, and I've looked at the raw logs for different sites on the hosting account many times in the past). Or Google got its wires crossed.

I can't figure out another explanation.

If the latter situation is indeed the case, it would indicate Google's algo somehow looks at various websites on the same server and this glitch exposed it.

(The visitor came via EARTHLINK, INC in NYC. The timing, if anybody else happens to see the same anomaly, was 08/Nov/2008:21:49:35 -0500.)

I've made a mistake in the past with putting Google Analytics code for one site into another. But here's we're talking about raw logs.

"GET / HTTP/1.1" 400 312 "http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=keyword1+ keyword2&aq=1&oq= keyword1+keyword3" "-"

Note: There weren't any 301 redirects or any other redirects involved in this (at least not at my end). Google, however, may have done some funky redirect, e.g: default to a secondary site on the same server, based on some matching data in its historical site profile (connecting one site to another).

p/g

If the latter situation is indeed the case, it would indicate Google's algo somehow looks at various websites on the same server and this glitch exposed it.

Very interesting. Without jumping to conclusions here, I can't help but notice the parallels to this new thread started today about a Google cache cross-up: [webmasterworld.com...]

I'm on a dedicated server with static IP address with no other websites - so in my case, there's nothing for Google to cross wires on.

However, I implemented a 301 mod rewrite from /directory/index.html to /directory/ on 7000+ pages in October (a few weeks before the fallout). I also updated all internal links at the same time.

It appears to me that Google isn't giving any weight to my internal link structure.

WMT now shows 404 errors for non-existing index.html pages. All of the sites listed in the error window actually link to / rather than index.html - bizar.

I'm seeing that too...as recent as Nov 9, 10, 11, 12, 14 and 15. WMT is listing a 404 error for a non-existing /directory/index.htm page and says that I have over 100 pages from my own site linking to it.

My site links to /directory/

p.s. page 1 ranking disappeared from mid-day. Now not in top 100 results.

crazy isn't it how the worlds so called number one can mess things up so bad! - I've got a site thats jumping between 90th & 3rd for site thats been around for years with no 301/401 or anything spammy - where as sites that are at the top are auto generate doorway sites, with thats just a page of links to other doorways and thats sat at 2nd has no design just hundreds on internal links - seems to me like the spammers are winning big time on G and hitting the webmasters that like to stay on the right side of line - Oh well G if thats what it takes!

< continued here: [webmasterworld.com...] >

[edited by: tedster at 8:10 pm (utc) on Nov. 26, 2008]