Google's and Boards' Indexing/Heuristics

MurmanskRun

Hi, folks,

So, I found a lump in my chest this morning... but that is incidental to this thread.

Further to making a GP appointment - and the I'm-a-bloke-so-webmd-it mindset - I figured I'd check boards for some "local" knowledge. Googling this returned the requisite results:

site:boards.ie breast cancer men

However, the first one (out of ten results) that caught my eye...

Breast Check Clinic... for a male! - boards ...
https://www.boards.ie › thread
Jan 27, 2015 - if any other men have been there for a check, would like to hear .... Breast cancer has one of the best survival rates.
You visited this page on 23/01/17.

... links to the boards homepage, not the thread. Indeed, a couple of other results have the same endpoint.

I suppose Google might have cached this despite it being a two year old thread and/or the thread has been deleted for some reason (a boards search for "Breast Check Clinic... for a male!" doesn't flag it either, though helpfully I see results for tofu and missing dogs!)

Just wondering is all. Thanks!

(Client-side: Chrome 55.x / responsive site)

Boards.ie: Mark

Hi there,

The post in question is in the Personal Issues forum (and can still be found via the Boards search). Other Personal Issues threads do the same thing when following a Google result. I can try to follow it up to find out the technical reason behind this.

MurmanskRun

Thanks, Mark,

PI (and presumably RI) never occurred to me what with their search restrictions. Actually, *can* RI/PI be searched (inside boards as a logged in *normal* user)? Anecdotally, I thought no?

A quick check shows posts from Ross circa 2001 and Dav circa 2011 claiming it is so. Which would raise the question: how come Google's crawlers can index threads/posts not visible to boards' internal search function?

If you've time, please do follow up with the technical reason. I'm guessing noindex/robot is moot for dynamic content?

Fr_Dougal

Boards.ie: Mark wrote: »

Hi there,

The post in question is in the Personal Issues forum (and can still be found via the Boards search). Other Personal Issues threads do the same thing when following a Google result. I can try to follow it up to find out the technical reason behind this.

Hi Mark,

It's happening to most searches. All google results that are boards related provide the correct thread in Google, but when I click on the google search result I'm kicked over to the main boards.ie homepage. We're taking about tool hire, home improvement etc., not PI.

Cheers,

FD

Boards.ie: Mark

Fr_Dougal wrote: »

Hi Mark,

It's happening to most searches. All google results that are boards related provide the correct thread in Google, but when I click on the google search result I'm kicked over to the main boards.ie homepage. We're taking about tool hire, home improvement etc., not PI.

Cheers,

FD

Yeah, just spotted that when following up on the above. Thanks for letting us know. Tech guys are looking into it now.

Boards.ie: Mark

We've a fix in place now. Chrome users will likely have to restart their browsers for this to take effect, while other browsers will need their cache cleaned first.