googlebot can't fetch, dns problem, please help

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cranius

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Feb 18, 2012
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I have my website hosted by a host that uses directadmin. In January, they changed the main domain name on the webhosting account, and since then my website has slowly dropped out of the google index, page by page.
When they made the account change, they changed the ip address and dns nameservers (I don't know why).
I set up a google webmasters account yesterday, and tried to fetch (as a google bot) pages from my website, but the google bot said they were unreachable. But bing continues to index my site, and it seems to always be online.
Anyway, I noticed in the direct admin control panel, where are different dns settings?
Under [DNS Management] is shows: ns554a.hostpc.com, ns554b.hostpc.com
But under [Site Summary / Statistics / Logs] is shows ns551a.hostpc.com, ns551b.hostpc.com

Is this normal, or could it be causing my problem?
My site is http://www.cranialborborygmus.com
and I am using the nameservers ns554a.hostpc.com, ns554b.hostpc.com

I've been pulling my hair out for weeks on this, and want to get to the bottom of it.
Should my control panel show the all these dns servers, or does that show my hosting account is set up wrong.
Thanks!
 
Since you can also visit the website yourself, and I can't see anything wrong either, and google can't reach the website, it is likely the server/hosting provider blocked googles IPs. You should contact them and explain the situation.

edit: as for the differences between dns and site stats; it doesn't really matter. As long as the dns servers configured at dns management respond correctly (which they do) its fine.
 
Last edited:
arieh,
Thanks for your response. I'm trying to work with my host, but I think this is a tough problem because the site "works" but it doesn't work for the googlebot to fetch it. I was hoping that the control panel showing the different name servers would be a red flag and would indicate an incorrect configuration that could be fixed to fix the problem. I agree it's probably a host setting problem, but I think I may have to be the one to figure it out if I want it fixed.
 
He already tried the webmaster tools; it cant reach the website. Biggest chance that it is the server blocking google. Some firewall or other software could have seen google as ddos or other excessive user. The server admin could check if google ip addresses are indeed blocked. The dns is perfectly good and there's no reason google couldn't reach it by a technical malfunction.
 
Thanks for all your input.
Just FYI: my webhost has yet to respond to my support ticket request (it's been two days), but I found multiple other posts from them indicating that they are aware of the "problem" that a "few" of their customers have been having for the last month, but that they aren't blocking the google bot in anyway and they haven't made any changes to their dns settings. So it seems they are saying it's google's problem, or they can't figure it out, and google is probably going to say it's the web hosts problem.
So I am stuck in the middle trying to figure out why the googlebot is unable to reach the website and it has been removed from the google index.
Arghhh!!!!
FYI: I didn't see anything in my apache logs (via my control panel), and awstats shows the googlebot visits my site daily.
 
What nameservers should you be using as far as your host is concerned?

Note that according to your registrar, you should be using these nameservers:

ns51.1and1.com
ns52.1and1.com

Yet those nameservers don't have any information for your domains. I'd think that has something to do with the problem.

You need to find out from your hosting company which nameservers they want you to use, and make sure that your registrar (1and1.com?) has them listed as nameservers. And then you need to make sure they're also listed in the DNS records on your server.

That should fix your problem.

Jeff
 
NoBaloney2 said:
What nameservers should you be using as far as your host is concerned?

Note that according to your registrar, you should be using these nameservers:

ns51.1and1.com
ns52.1and1.com

Yet those nameservers don't have any information for your domains. I'd think that has something to do with the problem.

You need to find out from your hosting company which nameservers they want you to use, and make sure that your registrar (1and1.com?) has them listed as nameservers. And then you need to make sure they're also listed in the DNS records on your server.

That should fix your problem.

Jeff
Click to expand...

To anyone reading this, I've got a temporary solution that works. Per my webhosting company, they told me to change to my domain registrar's nameserver (1and1) but then point the name server at the ip address for my webhost. I made the change yesterday and now "fetch as googlebot" in google webmaster works. So for some reason my host nameserver doesn't work (at least for the googlebot) but my domain registrar nameserver does.
And I still don't know why my directadmin show different nameservers for my host in the two different areas referenced above, but I also don't know if that has anything to do with my problem.
Again, I have (temporarily?) solved the problem for now by using a 1and1 nameserver pointed at my host ip address.
Thanks for all the input!
PS. all the test dns websites showed my webhost nameserver working, and it worked for bing and my website worked, it was just that googlebot couldn't reach it when I tried fetching it from google webmaster tools. Perhaps this problem will remain a mystery...
 
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