DISCREPANCIES BETWEEN LIVE SITE AND GOOGLE SEARCH

In some instances members listings seem to display differently on the live website and on the page reached through a Google Search.

The reason for this is based on an unusual aspect of the internet about which 99% of people are unaware:

Web Pages reached from a Google Search are a COPY of the page which Google has indexed (Yes, Google keeps its own copy of almost the entire internet). In other words it is not the actual live page you would reach by going directly to the page by putting its URL into your browser.

The next problem is that Google only sends its “bots” out to re-index pages at its own pace. Usually they do this every week or so and it varies from page to page. So changes that have been made on the live site only get updated on Google's copy of the page after the bot has revisited it.

You can verify this for yourself: 
On the Google search Result page you can click the little down arrow next to the green URL in the actual search result. You will get a dropdown box. Click on “Cached”. This will take you to a page where at the top it will show you the last date that Google indexed the page. Like this: “ It is a snapshot of the page as it appeared on 6 Oct 2013”

EXAMPLES OF HOW THIS MAY AFFECT OUR MEMBERS LISTINGS

• A change that you requested us to make does not appear on your page when you reach it via Google Search (please bear in mind that failing to refresh your browser - Ctrl + F5 - will also not reflect latest changes, so always try refreshing your browser first). 
   
• You requested us to remove your listing with immediate effect and yet it still appears when you do a Google Search. The same principle applies here. We immediately remove you from our site when instructed to do so, but Google only knows this once it comes back to your page on our site. Until then it keeps your previous page (In exceptional circumstances such as legal proceedings one can ask Google to remove the page immediately).
   
• You cannot find a link to your page when you do a search using the "Search Site" box on our website. The same principle is at work here as our "Site Search" functionality is powered by Google Search.  Although your page may have been added to our live site, Google may not have visited yet to ascertain that there is a new page on our site and your page is therefore not yet included in their index (please note: this discrepancy does not apply to people searching via the "dial code and service required" search on our home page - which is the predominant way people reach your page - which will always take them to your live page. Only the "Search full Site" box - where people put in their own keywords - is affected.

SOLUTIONS

Unfortunately Google operates under its own rules and we cannot change that. But rest assured that they usually do not take longer than a week or two to revisit all of our website's pages. Also: the discrepancy is only evident where people reach your individual page directly from Google Search results. If they use our home page search function (choosing a dial code and service) they will always arrive at your latest page. If they click on a link to your page from any website other than Google Search Results, they will likewise reach the latest live page.