Google search of our domain lists connections contacts in the wrong area

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Viewing 8 posts - 1 through 8 (of 8 total)
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  • 11/23/2015 at 2:32 pm #356084
    Scott Stoddard
    Participant

    When performing a site search of our site for a staff member by name, we get a proper result for the contact card in the generic directory, however, we also seem to get a card for them with a link pointing to the academic department “Religion” even though we do not identify those people in the shortcodes on the religion page and when you visit that faculty page, only the 6 people that are supposed to be in Religion show up there.

    See here: http://droplr.ubishops.ca/1bkQY

    Any thoughts?

    Thanks,
    Scott

    11/23/2015 at 3:23 pm #356092
    Steven Zahm
    Keymaster

    @ Scott

    My best guess is that those entries did exist on that page at the time Google indexed the page. I would assume since they are not present now, when Google reindexes the page, those incorrect links will be removed.

    The entry is being shown, even though it is being excluded by the shortcode is because when an entry is queried directly it’ll be displayed. I’m thinking maybe I should add a filter which does a 404 when an entry is being requested that should be excluded based on the shortcode attributes. I added this to my issue tracker.

    Back to the issue on hand, like I said, I do believe these results will be removed the next time Google indexes the page. I think the page can be requested to be indexed thru the Webmaster tools.

    I’ll leave this issue open for now, let me know if these link do not get removed in the next couple weeks.

    oh… just remembered, in Webmaster tools there is an option to remove links from the index… maybe you can remove the invalid links?

    11/26/2015 at 11:20 am #356363
    Scott Stoddard
    Participant

    Unfortunately, I wish that were true. ;)

    I thought it might be a possibility because one of the first sets of pages we designed was the Religion pages and when we incorporated Connections, we might have (although likely only for a day or two) listed all of the people on that page. That was in August.

    So, then I took a new faculty member whose account was only created last week (Nov. 19) and searched for it “Arbery”. Unfortunately, still found as existing on the Religion faculty page!

    http://droplr.ubishops.ca/FNU4

    So weird, I can’t actually see how this is happening, but it is definitely reproducible with all new accounts.

    Scott

    11/30/2015 at 11:27 am #356584
    Steven Zahm
    Keymaster

    @ Scott

    Looking at the Custom Google Search results… I noticed this page:

    https://www.ubishops.ca/academic-programs/faculty-of-arts-and-science/humanities/religion-department/faculty/faculty-profile-details/

    It seems all entries are listed on this page and browsing the site manually, it does not seem this page is being used. If I go to the Religion Department / Faculty page the individual entry details show on this page, not /faculty-profile-details/

    So, I’m guess that unused page is in the sitemap which gets indexed by Google and because all entries are one this page, this somehow generates the search results you are seeing.

    I guess my next suggestion, make sure this page is truly unused and trash it. Then wait to see if the search results are corrected after Google reindexes the site. If it does not, that would be a head scratcher because why this one page… other instances where you are using Connections on this site are not being indexed like this… must be something unique with this page, hopefully this unused page is the cause.

    12/02/2015 at 9:45 am #356839
    Scott Stoddard
    Participant

    Thank you very much! This issue is now fixed.

    12/02/2015 at 10:24 am #356847
    Steven Zahm
    Keymaster

    @ Scott

    So, the cause of the issue was that “rogue” page?

    12/14/2015 at 1:14 pm #357960
    Scott Stoddard
    Participant

    Yes the cause was the rogue page. My fault for completely forgetting I had created it!! :-)

    Julie

    12/14/2015 at 1:56 pm #357984
    Steven Zahm
    Keymaster

    @ Scott

    Great to hear we figured out this why this was happening!

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