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The best answer is A. Searching Google using the site URL will give you a good idea of what, if anything, Google has indexed from the website’s text and tags. Searching Google for “Providence” is too general – you’d be wading through so many listings from Providence, Rhode Island that you might never find the site you’re looking for. And searching for “Providence Restaurant Los Angeles” is nicely specific, but remember: at this moment you’re not looking to see how the site is ranking; you’re trying to back up your assumption that Flash is causing boring, wordless listings on Google.

So you type http://www.providencela.com into Google’s search box, and the first thing you find is this very curious listing:

You gasp (or maybe you avert your eyes if words like “rentalsdicks” offend you). This is clearly not what the folks at this celebrated restaurant want people to see! Where on the site is this spammy text coming from? Like all good SEOs, you’re an advanced searcher (our article on handy search shortcuts will help if you’re not) so your first instinct is to view Google’s cached version. But wait - Google doesn’t offer one for this listing. 

There’s no Google cache, and you need to find out where this text is coming from. How do you proceed? (Click on your answer to move to the next step.)

1. Open the URL in a browser and view the source code.
2. Check the website on a spider emulator.
3. Call your restaurant friend and accuse her of spamming the search engines.

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posted 7/11/2006

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