Out of Date Google Listings.........

[emporiumdays]

I've had a few of my listings 'expire' and then I've reposted them again.
When searching Google I've noticed some (a lot of) older dated & dead listings are still showing up.

Do I need to do anything to have these removed from google?
(I just don't think it looks good to have listings that 'go nowhere' on the net).

[astral276]

No, when a listing closes eBid should notify Google that the listing has expired. After that, of course, it is down to Google to process it. So hard to say who is falling down on the job.

[emporiumdays]

Here's an example .... Dated 2nd of January.....


SUDOKU Pocket Puzzle Books (x2) qed4v on ebid United States

2 Jan 2011 ... SUDOKU Pocket Puzzle Books (x2) qed4v Auction in the Other,Books,Books, Comics & Magazines Category on ebid United States.
us.ebid.net/.../sudoku-pocket-puzzle-books-qed4v-36625481.htm - United States - Cached

and of course the same listing shows again and again for each country...


Guess I'll just leave them then??? Seems so many...... No wonder the net's got billions of listings !

[astral276]

Ahh...You're talking about in a general Google search and not in Google Products. That's a different matter.

In that case they will hang around like a bad smell. Even though the listing has ended the link is still valid. Afraid I don't know how long (if ever) it takes such a reference to vanish from Google.

[emporiumdays]

Oh................ Well I'm keen to find a way (I'm sure there must be), 'cos it aint good advertising for eBid (I think)......
thanks for relying astral..... maybe someone somewhere knows......

[astral276]

Then you need to talk to Google. Those links are from Google's bots crawling the web and have nothing whatsoever to do with eBid.

[emporiumdays]

Yes, that sounds right astral, it just might be that someone round here's dealt with this before....
(I live in hope....) thanks for the bump...

[Darthmatt]

I presume it works roughly the same as it does with feebay's pages.

On that site, when an auction finishes, you are still able to access the listing but are no longer able to bid. If you were watching it, it appears at the bottom of your list as ended or if you go into someone's feedback score it will let you look at the item up to a period of about 3 months. After this time th item is no longer viewable. This is usually because the site has done a periodic clearout of pages which are no longer required. As the page is technically still accessible for those 3 months, it can still be crawled by the search engines. Thus google purely finds pages, its down to the site owners to manage their content and choose a realistic time-frame to remove redundant pages.

[bykimbo]

Here's an example .... Dated 2nd of January.....


SUDOKU Pocket Puzzle Books (x2) qed4v on ebid United States

2 Jan 2011 ... SUDOKU Pocket Puzzle Books (x2) qed4v Auction in the Other,Books,Books, Comics & Magazines Category on ebid United States.
us.ebid.net/.../sudoku-pocket-puzzle-books-qed4v-36625481.htm - United States - Cached

and of course the same listing shows again and again for each country...


Guess I'll just leave them then??? Seems so many...... No wonder the net's got billions of listings !

That link works perfectly well and is working as I'd expect it to. There's nothing wrong with showing ended items via Google natural search - it all helps demonstrate the variety of items available here and pulls in more viewers. If that particular listing has closed, they can search for a live one. As long as links aren't actually *broken* then greater visibility is achieved - a good thing.

[emporiumdays]

OK....... Thankyou very much everyone for your help.
It all means (basically) that I don't have to worry about those listings after all......
And that's great news!