I have an educational web site devoted to curriculum development, so
it is important that my web site can be found on Google.
At the beginning of last summer, I could easily find my web site on
Google when I did a test search. Some of the key phrases
I would use in the test searches were: Alles Biology, Marine
Phytoplankton Blooms, and Asian Air Pollution. Note that I did not
need to use quotes to achieve a successful search on Google then. Now
I am unable to find my site on Google no matter what
combination of key words or phrases I use. I have tried the advance
search and still no luck. I am, however, able to find my site
on some other search engines (but not the homepage). What gives with
Google? My real question is what must I do to modify
my web site to be easily found. Note that I have added several new
pages to my site and want others to be able to find them
by key phrases (example: Stellar Nursery in the Orion Nebula). My web
site URL is < http://fire.biol.wwu.edu/trent/alles/index.html >.

Hi, 

When I saw your URL there at the bottom I was a bit stunned that you
were having the problems you described in the question. Google
normally goes above and beyond in indexing the .edu type websites.

When I got to the URL you posted I was stunned again to see that you
have no PR (PageRank) at all. The meter is gray, which happens
normally for new sites that haven't been indexed at all, or have been
taken out of the search engine for one reason or another, none of them
applying to your website. But your website is a lower level of the
main http://fire.biol.wwu.edu, so I went to check on the PR for that
webpage and found our problem.

http://fire.biol.wwu.edu has no PR and nothing on the page, and no
robots.txt to guide the robots to your website inside. Nothing. In
fact there are only four lines of code on that main page which do
nothing except change the background to black. This is your problem.
The robots probably believe there is nothing on this domain and
there's nothing to tell them otherwise. Even though you have an
extensive website back in the lower levels you are not the main domain
level, so nothing is being seen. Thus the robots have written your
domain server off and set it to NULL in the PR area.

Other Search Engines still have you listed because your pages still
exist, and there are probably direct links to the pages. But this
won't last long either. Eventually you will be weeded out of their
engines too because the main page doesn't have anything on it. Some of
the other engines are not as fast in doing this type of house cleaning
as Google is.

Things you can do. 

Get a hold of you webmaster and ask that he put something on that main
page and a link to your from there. About 300-500 words would be
enough to take care of it. If I were you I'd send him the 300-500
words and just ask him to stick it on there.

After this, resubmit the main site to Google and perhaps write them a
letter via email at this address help@google.com to see if they can
restart the website. You should only submit the main URL to google,
don't put in your back page area. But in your email to them, explain
your area is your website, maybe they can do some tweaking (don't
count on that).

Add your URL to Google
://www.google.com/addurl.html

Google Information for Webmasters
://www.google.com/webmasters/2.html

Page Rank Questions
://www.google.com/webmasters/4.html


Good luck to you, 

webadept-ga