Google sees redirect when there isn't any?

[templatemonster]

I've posted a question previously regarding the very strange changes in our search positions here http://www.seomoz.org/q/different-pages-ranking-for-search-terms-often-irrelevant

New strange thing I've noticed - and very disturbing thing - seems like Google has somehow glued two pages together. Or, in other words, looks like Google sees a 301 redirect from one page to another.

This, actually, happened to several pages, I'll illustrate it with our Flash templates page.

URL: _http://www.templatemonster.com/flash-templates.php_
Has been #3 for 'Flash templates' in Google.

Reasons why it looks like redirect:
Reason #1
Now this _http://www.templatemonster.com/logo-templates.php_ page is ranking instead of _http://www.templatemonster.com/flash-templates.php_
Also, http://www.templatemonster.com/flash-templates.php is not in the index.
That what would typically happen if you had 301 from Flash templates to logo templates page.

Reason #2
If you search for cache:http://www.templatemonster.com/flash-templates.php Google will give the cahced version of http://www.templatemonster.com/logo-templates.php!!!
If you search for info:www.templatemonster.com/flash-templates.php you again get info on http://www.templatemonster.com/logo-templates.php instead!

Reason #3
In Google Webmaster Tools when I look for the external links to _http://www.templatemonster.com/logo-templates.php_ I see all the links from different sites, which actually point to _http://www.templatemonster.com/flash-templates.php_ listed as "Via this intermediate link: http://www.templatemonster.com/flash-templates.php" As I understand Google makes this "via intermediate link" when there's a redirect? That way, currently Google thinks that all the external links we have for Flash templates are actually pointing to Logo templates?

The point is we NEVER had any kind of redirect from _http://www.templatemonster.com/flash-templates.php_ to _http://www.templatemonster.com/logo-templates.php_

I've seen several similar situations on Google Help forums but they were never resolved.

So, I wonder if anybody can explain how that could have happened, and what can be done to solve that problem?

[AdamThompson]

So you are certain that you never had any type of redirect or canonical tag that might account for this. Hmmm, this looks weird.

After looking at this issue and your previous question, I'm stumped. I don't see any redirects, canonicals, etc that could cause this. My best suggestion is to try to get the ear of someone at Google (maybe try Matt Cutts?).

[AdamThompson]

P.S. have you tried using the Fetch as Googlebot tool in WMT?

[RyanKent]

I have looked at your page header codes, anchor links, html code on both pages along with the robots.txt for your site. There is no apparent reason for this issue.

The google cache URL for your logo-templates page is: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://www.templatemonster.com/flash-templates.php

Your Google cache is clearly displaying the wrong page as it appeared on July 19th.

You have two options. You can do nothing and see if the issue resolves itself after the next Google update. Another choice, which I would recommend, is to add the canonical tag to all your pages. The canonical tag is helpful for numerous reasons. I add the tag to every page. That tag should clear up any confusion that occurred.

[sferrino]

A few other points.

site:templatemonster.com/flash-templates.php

Doesn't show anything, (except the few items which you have blocked by robots.txt, so that is normal) which leads me to believe you had an issue as Ryan said on July 19th. Luckily they kept you in the results for "Flash templates" even with a different page.

I would also advise to add descriptions to all pages at the same time you are adding canonicals. Why does the 'Problem' page flash-templates.php not have a description tag? Perhaps a coding issue that is causing this issue as well?

[BTeubner]

Can you determine whether this is happening to any other pages right now?

Whenever we see this type of thing, we look at the development schedule to see which dev changes have recently been implemented. As everyone else has noted, I don't see anything out of place either but sometimes it's easier to look at specific recent dev changes.

Has the page been crawled since last cache? If not, maybe it would be a good idea to 'help' google crawl it a little more quickly to see if things get resolved.

[templatemonster]

This post is deleted!

[RyanKent]

I noticed you still have not added the canonical tag to your pages. If you do not wish to add them to all the pages in your site would you consider at least adding it to a couple of your affected pages to see if there is any impact?

You wont notice any difference until the pages are crawled again, but if you don't make any change at all this issue may remain.

I would also suggest your site requires a higher level of security then most e-commerce sites. Your audience and customers are often developers with various levels of experience. Any unhappy customer or developer will often have at least some knowledge related to website security, not to mention your competitors.

If you use a solid backup system you can compare the files from your current site with the files from a backup taken in June to see if you have any infected files.

[templatemonster]

Actually, we do use canonical on pages with parameters such as this one:
http://www.templatemonster.com/flash-templates.php?aff=affiliate
or this
http://www.templatemonster.com/flash-templates.php?from=2&type=9

Do you suggest that we place canonical on the page itself, won't it create some kind of infinite loop? If http://www.templatemonster.com/flash-templates.php refers to itself as canonical?

[RyanKent]

It is perfectly standard for the "real" page to show a canonical to itself. For example, look at the code for this Q&A question. It has a canonical tag pointing to itself.

A loop would be created only if you made an error. If you set the canonical for Page A as B, then you set the canonical for Page B as A, then you would have created a loop which should be fixed. If you designate the canonical for Page A as B, and the canonical for Page B as B, that would be perfectly valid.

In summary, yes I am suggesting that all pages involving /flash-templates.php including the page itself should use the canonical tag. At the very least add it to both the flash-templates.php page and the logo-templates.php page, each pointing to themselves.

[templatemonster]

Funny, we had that self-pointing canonical tag since July 8th - just removed it less than a day ago as we thought it might be harmful. So, that means that it didn't help as it was there all the time.