# Google indexing Cycle Chat



## ColinJ (22 Apr 2017)

Hi Shaun.

I have been able to use Google to find lots of things that I posted on CC in the past but one particular post that I made recently seems to have escaped Google's attention.

I found a work-around for a problem which has bothered a lot of people and posted about it HERE.

I made an effort to make the post easy to find by anybody searching for that solution but it hasn't worked. I'm beginning to wonder if Google's software is clever enough to detect when people are trying to manipulate it and penalised my post for this ...



ColinJ said:


> First, a helping hand for Google to find this post and bring you here ...
> 
> *******************************************************
> This is a simple work-around or fix or solution for a bug or problem with using Memory Map on Windows when it can display blank or grey squares on maps on loading them or starting up and can also cause very slow changes or long delays when changing or altering map scales or resolutions.
> *******************************************************



I could edit that out of the post to see if it helps, but can you think of any other reason why it doesn't show up in a Google search?


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## velovoice (22 Apr 2017)

I suspect your post is simply "too new". SEO takes awhile.


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## ColinJ (22 Apr 2017)

velovoice said:


> I suspect your post is simply "too new". SEO takes awhile.


I have managed to Google CC posts within a day or so in the past and been pretty impressed by how attentive the Googlebots were. I made the post in question a few weeks ago so it should have been found by now.


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## DaveReading (22 Apr 2017)

Google "it can display blank or grey squares on maps" and it finds your post from today, but not any previous one.


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## jefmcg (22 Apr 2017)

ColinJ said:


> I have managed to Google CC posts within a day or so in the past and been pretty impressed by how attentive the Googlebots were. I made the post in question a few weeks ago so it should have been found by now.


Yes. It's already found this thread but not the other. 

You can manually add a page to Google. I've just done that. Let's see if it makes a difference.


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## jefmcg (22 Apr 2017)

jefmcg said:


> You can manually add a page to Google. I've just done that. Let's see if it makes a difference.


Seems to have done the trick

https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=site:cyclechat.net+bug+Memory+Map+Windows

Page 1 of the other thread now appears in that search. 

Ironically not in the other search because "_In order to show you the most relevant results, we have omitted some entries very similar to the 9 already displayed." _so this thread is actually stopping the other one appearing in search results.


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## ColinJ (22 Apr 2017)

jefmcg said:


> Seems to have done the trick
> 
> https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=site:cyclechat.net+bug+Memory+Map+Windows
> 
> ...


Oh well, at least people will now be able to find my fix for the problem. If you searched before, all you could find was other people asking for help or telling you to delete the software and reinstall it.

Thanks for your help!

I am still curious as to why the original post was not picked by Google though.


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## Shaun (22 Apr 2017)

*There is no need for anyone to manually submit CycleChat pages to Google* - we regularly submit a full sitemap and have Googlebot constantly crawling CC, hoovering up new content - usually indexing new threads within an hour or less.

Both pages of the referenced thread have been indexed by Google for months and were there last night when I checked. In addition we tell Google _not_ to index individual posts (and 301 redirect the post permalinks to their corresponding page URL) so as not to dilute the results.

If you ever want to check if a CC thread has been indexed don't use the title or keywords because the results you get are different to what others get because Google adapts them based on a variety of criteria and what Google knows about you, your IP address, organisation, what you've been looking at recently, etc. - instead use the *site* limiter to denote CycleChat only, and the thread ID to specify *exactly* what you are looking for, like this:

```
site:cyclechat.net 203908
```
All that being said, we have no control over how much or little of a page Google will store and use in its results, but its will almost always be the first post of every page so @ColinJ, if you have a post that you think will be useful to a lot of people, it is probably best to post it as a new thread with a good, long, descriptive title with key words that people might use when searching Google. 

Cheers,
Shaun


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## ColinJ (22 Apr 2017)

Shaun said:


> All that being said, we have no control over how much or little of a page Google will store and use in its results, but its will almost always be the first post of every page so @ColinJ, if you have a post that you think will be useful to a lot of people, it is probably best to post it as a new thread with a good, long, descriptive title with key words that people might use when searching Google.
> 
> Cheers,
> Shaun


Thanks, Shaun.

I did do site:cyclechat.net ... but then I searched for the contents of my post.

Another time I will create the new thread and include a link to the original discussion.

In fact. I'll try that now and see what happens!


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## jefmcg (22 Apr 2017)

Shaun said:


> There is no need for anyone to manually submit CycleChat pages to Google


 (there isn't a shame emoji, so this will have to do)

There isn't a :shrug: emoji either. @Shaun, sort those out. I need them more than smilies. I go big, either totally humiliated or above it all. No middle ground.

But still, sorry for overreaching.


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## Shaun (22 Apr 2017)

@ColinJ - I've edited your new thread to *include *the fix - no point making a new thread about a solution then not including it and just linking to somewhere else. 

Cheers,
Shaun


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## Shaun (22 Apr 2017)

Oh, and Google has indexed it already:


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## ColinJ (22 Apr 2017)

Thanks - I am about 2 minutes behind you. Excellent - we have gone from fruitless searches for the solution to number 1 search result with my fix!


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