Links from Google to here no longer work

[Jules TR6]

Searching in Google, results for TR Register just take me to the Home page, not to the actual link - which is where I want to go.

It seems that since the last update of the site the URL addresses for pages have been modified, hence all the Google data for the site is now void.

Anyone else found this issue? - or is it just my browser etc?

[Chris Hale]

If your talking about the forum you need to use trforums.com as your site not tr register

[RobH]

That was bound to happen Jules because the old addresses that Goggle has indexed are now wrong.  It will take a while for the web-crawlers to find and index the information again.  Things will get better slowly - last time it took a couple of weeks before searches were back to normal. 

[Jules TR6]

35 minutes ago, RobH said:

That was bound to happen Jules because the old addresses that Goggle has indexed are now wrong.  It will take a while for the web-crawlers to find and index the information again.  Things will get better slowly - last time it took a couple of weeks before searches were back to normal. 

...ok that's what I suspected - was just a shock not to be able to get to the info Google was finding.

I know if you are the website owner you can manually ask Google to crawl your site to speed things up.

Anyway like you say after a while all will be well again.

Edited April 4, 2025 by Jules TR6

[Chris Hale]

Try searching like this

search:trforums.com wiper box 
 

seems to work ok

[Jules TR6]

11 minutes ago, Chris Hale said:

Try searching like this

search:trforums.com wiper box 
 

seems to work ok

Ok I entered that into Google, first result to here was this link

https://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&opi=89978449&url=https://www.tr-register.co.uk/forums/index.php%3F/topic/69575-wiper-wheel-box-replacement/&ved=2ahUKEwiClZ6mnL6MAxVFT0EAHVrEG2sQFnoECCAQAQ&usg=AOvVaw10vDe3PCTjir7yN4WnHG49

just goes to the home page, not to where it should.

[TorontoTim]

Hi Jules,

That link is to the old Forum (see "register" in the link) and, now that it is closed down, those old links just redirect to the new Forum home page. 

If you find the link with "trforums" as part of the URL it will take you to where you want to go. This should also appear in the Google results. 

Tim

[AarhusTr6]

On 4/4/2025 at 1:01 PM, Jules TR6 said:

Ok I entered that into Google, first result to here was this link

https://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&opi=89978449&url=https://www.tr-register.co.uk/forums/index.php%3F/topic/69575-wiper-wheel-box-replacement/&ved=2ahUKEwiClZ6mnL6MAxVFT0EAHVrEG2sQFnoECCAQAQ&usg=AOvVaw10vDe3PCTjir7yN4WnHG49

just goes to the home page, not to where it should.

Same issue - very annoying !  So will it re index in time ?

[RobH]

It will be some considerable time before the web-crawlers have found and indexed the new site properly.   Even then Google won't have forgotten the old links so might show you those too.

Even if you use ''trforums'' in the search term including the inverted commas as Tim suggests, Google will probably still show results with  'tr-forum' as well.  (If you don't use those commas you will get anything with the letters 'tr' in it.) 

https://www.markbrinker.com/how-long-for-a-new-website-to-appear-on-google

Edited April 6, 2025 by RobH

[Jules TR6]

7 hours ago, AarhusTr6 said:

Same issue - very annoying !  So will it re index in time ?

When I make significant changes to my website I manually ask Google to crawl it, submit a site map - results in much quicker updates to new links and pages than if I leave Google to come back around of its own accord. Hope the owners of this site have done this, as it makes a big difference. 

Edited April 6, 2025 by Jules TR6

[Jules TR6]

Actually I really wish the website managers of the site hadn't changed the page addresses, as now all my saved bookmarks in my browser (and in notes I've made), end up falling off a cliff! - if they are listening can they go back to the structure as it was before?

[AarhusTr6]

This is really annoying. Several times I find the article in Google follow link I just come to the homepage. Can you please have a look at fixing? And I know you guys are doing this as voluntary work…

Richard

[oxf2]

On 4/6/2025 at 6:45 PM, Jules TR6 said:

When I make significant changes to my website I manually ask Google to crawl it

How do you do that?

I've found a workaround that is ugly, but it will do for me for the time being, is to *right-click* the google link, paste it into a new tab, then delete everything from the beginning up to and including "https://www.tr-register.co.uk/forums/index.php%3F/" and replace all that with "https://trforums.com/index.php?/", then hit the return button. Works for me in firefox.

[RobH]

There's nothing to fix Richard - it's just that the old Google hyperlinks point to the wrong site now.   It's like having all the signposts in a town pointing to the library, but the library has moved.  It isn't the library that is wrong, it's the signposts.

In time Google will find the new site and index it again but that's nothing anyone at TRR can do anything about. 

Oxy's 'fix' will work as long as the item hasn't been moved in the forum.  Some forums and threads have been deleted or re-named so those ones won't work even with the fix. 

 

 

 

 

Edited April 12, 2025 by RobH

[SirHector]

On 4/4/2025 at 8:41 AM, Jules TR6 said:

Searching in Google, results for TR Register just take me to the Home page, not to the actual link - which is where I want to go.

It seems that since the last update of the site the URL addresses for pages have been modified, hence all the Google data for the site is now void.

Anyone else found this issue? - or is it just my browser etc?

Forum terrible now to use

[RobH]

2 hours ago, SirHector said:

Forum terrible now to use

Not really  - it's much the same as it always was.   The technical stuff is all still there but Alec's Inn has gone.  The forum search function still works the same way. 

The things that don't work well  at present are Google searches and anything you may have bookmarked, because all the old links point to the old site.  If you do a Google search and the first part of the result header says  "https://www.tr-register.co.uk/forums/"       it is an old link and will just dump you at the main forum page.    

New Links that do work start  "https://www.trforums.com/"

You can follow an old link fairly simply.  Instead of just clicking on it , you need to copy the URL and paste it into the browser address bar. Then edit it by removing the old first bit as above and type in the new bit instead.   It sounds a faff but if you save the new bit as a text file you can just copy-and-paste it instead of typing it each time.

Obviously if you do that from an old bookmark you need to re-bookmark the page and remove the old bookmark too. 

Eventually Google will learn the new addresses so you won't need to do that but it will take some time.  It's getting better already as I just did a Google search for "trforums ignition" and the first 8 links were to the new site.  It certainly helps to prefix any search with "trforums" as that will eliminate most of the old links. 

 

Edited April 26, 2025 by RobH

[SirHector]

Even the simple back button doesn’t work……I’m sorry but not convince its as good as the old way

[RobH]

31 minutes ago, SirHector said:

Even the simple back button doesn’t work

Ah I guess you are using the 'phone version ?  The back button works perfectly well on my Android phone so it may be a browser-related thing.  I use Opera Mini on the phone. 

The desktop version seems to be behaving exactly as it used to on the old site. 

[Chris Hale]

Works ok on my iPhone 

[Jules TR6]

On 4/12/2025 at 9:51 AM, oxf2 said:

 

On 4/6/2025 at 6:45 PM, Jules TR6 said:

When I make significant changes to my website I manually ask Google to crawl it

How do you do that?

 

Submit a sitemap…

https://developers.google.com/search/docs/crawling-indexing/ask-google-to-recrawl
 

as links in Google still are broke, I doubt the owners of this site have done the above. Actually I wish they’d kept the old structure, as now all my notes which contains links to info here are broke also! ok there is a work around but it’s a hassle. I hope the site can be recrawled soon, and then we can all get on the other side of this ASAP.

[RobH]

It's slowly getting there. When you do a Google search use "trforums" as the first part of the search term and the first few results will generally be for the new site. 

 

[Paul Heritage2]

Like when you move house and can tell the post office you’ve moved address, you can do the same with Google so all existing links work and Google knows they are permanent (301). Surprised this wasn’t done tbh. As mentioned before, an active sitemap would also be used and location given to Google. 

[TorontoTim]

Hi All,

I do understand that there are things that could be done to improve the Google/internet search experience but, right now, we're lucky to have a working Forum at all.

This will take a minute to get enerything done - not least some legal requirements to ensure everything complies with current online legislation.

In the meantime, good interim tactics for a decent web search experience have been posted above and I'd urge people to use those.

Cheers,

Tim