How do I diagnose a site that has had a corrupted database restored?
-
Here's the situation:
Downloaded a backup of a full database from CPanel, because we needed to perform some queries on it.
Found out that after restoring it, CPanel had not been able to zip up the full database because the server memory was set so low (some posts weren't showing up after the restore).
SO, how would I go about determining exactly what content is missing from the site? What search engine queries would you perform? Is there a plugin I could use to establish the inconsistencies between the database content and the search results?
Your help is appreciated in advance!
-
Thanks a lot, Ryan. This response was really helpful.
-
Prior to SEO, my time was spent as a Microsoft Database Administrator. Your site almost certainly is using a MySQL database which is a different format then T-SQL, but the comparison likely holds.
Whenever I set up a MS SQL database, a task would be scheduled to automatically shrink the database. There are temp tables which are added and removed, files within the database which can have unused pages removed, etc. A database size reduction of 5% does not indicate to me any data loss.
At a high level, you need to compare the "corrupted" database with the one you restored on a file or table level to determine any differences. That is the only reasonable way to achieve your goal. The work should ideally be performed by a professional who is highly experienced in MySQL.
If you desire further assistance, I recommend pursuing the topic on a MySQL forum as this does not really pertain to SEO nor even WordPress.
-
Hi Ryan,
Apologies for not mentioning the software. The website is built on Wordpress.
Here's a bit extra information for you regarding the issue: upon inspection after seeing that the database was corrupted, comparing file sizes of the recently backed-up database, with a database that was backed-up three days beforehand, we found that the most recently backed-up database was around 5% smaller in file size than the earlier one—if anything it should be larger.
Regarding timestamps, the latest posts are there, and the comments seem to be there, so determining what exactly IS missing is something I'm going to need help with.
I can't restore the earlier version of the database either, because important data has been added since then.
The site works fine, for now. I'm just worried somewhere down the road we're going to find that there are 100 posts missing that are now turning up as 404 pages and lost links.
Does that make sense? Thanks for your help.
-
Based on your inquiry, it seems likely you are using specific software to run your site. It is unclear what type of software is being used, which is a critical factor. It could be a CMS such as WordPress. a shopping cart such as ZenCart, a forum such as vBulletin, etc.
You would likely receive the fastest and most accurate response by using the support site of the specific software in use.
Based on your questions, you are in far over your head and should ideally step aside and find a programmer who can resolve the issue. With that said, I'll try to answer your questions.
"how would I go about determining exactly what content is missing from the site?"
In order to determine what is missing, you need a baseline. You need to understand the site's function and activity. For example, if you are running an ecommerce site, what is the timestamp of the last order placed on the site?
"What search engine queries would you perform?"
None. You have an onsite issue. That is where your attention needs to be focused.
** "Is there a plugin I could use to establish the inconsistencies between the database content and the search results?"**
No. The search results should not even be a consideration. Search engines may choose to index or not index your content based on numerous factors including the robots.txt file, the meta tags on each page, the content on each page and so forth. Asking this question indicates you are grasping at straws. If your site is important to you, hire a professional developer to fix the problem. If the site is not of great importance (i.e. it does not generate revenue) then you can visit the site of the software in use and spend a day or two reading various articles, forums and such, then making various setting changes in an attempt to restore the site.
Another option....contact the web host and request them to restore a full backup of the entire site. This option would likely be best, but you would lose all data from after the time the backup was taken.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Transfering Site from Http to HTTPS
Migrating all of our pages from HTTP to HTTPS. I am listing few of my concerns regarding the same: Currently, all HTTPS traffic to our Homepage and SEO page is 301 Redirected to HTTP equivalent. So, when we enable HTTPS on all our pages and 301 all HTTP traffic to HTTPS and stop current 301 Redirection to HTTP, will it still cause a loop during Google crawl due to old indexing? Will we move whole SEO facing site to HTTPS at once or will it be in phases? Which of the two approach is better keeping SEO in mind? what all SEO changes will be required on all pages.(eg. Canonical URLs on our website as well as affiliate websites), sitemaps etc.
Technical SEO | | RobinJA1 -
Off-site company blog linking to company site or blog incorporated into the company site?
Kind of a SEO newbie, so be gentle. I'm a beginner content strategist at a small design firm. Currently, I'm working with a client on a website redesign. Their current website is a single page dud with a page authority of 5. The client has a word press blog with a solid URL name, a domain authority of 100 and page authority of 30. My question is this: would it be better for my client from an SEO perspective to: Re-skin their existing blog and link to the new company website with it, hopefully passing on some of its "Google Juice,"or... Create a new blog on their new website (and maybe do a 301 redirect from the old blog)? Or are there better options that I'm not thinking of? Thanks for whatever help you can give a newbie. I just want to take good care of my client.
Technical SEO | | TheKatzMeow0 -
Will sitemap generated in Yoast for a combined wordpress/magento site map entire site ?
Hi For an ecommerce site thats been developed via a combination of wordpress and magento and has yoast installed, will the sitemap (& other yoast features) map (& apply to) the entire site or just wordpress aspects ? In other words does one need to do anything else to have a full sitemap for a combined magento/wordpress site or will Yoast cover it all ? This link seems to suggest should be fine but seeing if anyone else encountered this and had problems or if straightforward ? http://fishpig.co.uk/wordpress-integration/docs/plugins.html cheers dan
Technical SEO | | Dan-Lawrence0 -
Why my site is not indexing in google
In google webmaster i have updated my sitemap in Mar 6th..There is around 22000 links..But google fetched only 5300 links for long time...
Technical SEO | | Rajesh.Chandran
I waited for 1 month till no improvement in google index..So apr6th we have uploaded new sitemap (1200 links totally)..,But only 4 links indexed in google ..
why google not indexing my urls? Is this affect our ranking in SERP? How many links are advisable to submit in sitemap for a website?0 -
What can i do to move my site up the search engines
Hi. my site www.in2town.co.uk is currently number five in google for the search word lifestyle magazine, sometimes it moves to four but for over a year it has not got past four. before we had to do the site from scratch due to a major problem upgrading, we were number one in the search engines and our traffic was around 30% higher than it is now. For the keyword lifestyle news, we are on the fifth page of google and would really like to improve this. I would like to know what i need to do on our home page to try and improve our rankings for these two words. the most important word for us is lifestyle news. any help in my goal to improve our rankings would be great. We have improved our design which we are still working on, and we have upgraded to a bigger dedicated server to improve the speed.
Technical SEO | | ClaireH-1848860 -
301 redirecting old content from one site to updated content on a different site
I have a client with two websites. Here are some details, sorry I can't be more specific! Their older site -- specific to one product -- has a very high DA and about 75K visits per month, 80% of which comes from search engines. Their newer site -- focused generally on the brand -- is their top priority. The content here is much better. The vast majority of visits are from referrals (mainly social channels and an email newsletter) and direct traffic. Search traffic is relatively low though. I really want to boost search traffic to site #2. And I'd like to piggy back off some of the search traffic from site #1. Here's my question: If a particular article on site #1 (that ranks very well) needs to be updated, what's the risk/reward of updating the content on site #2 instead and 301 redirecting the original post to the newer post on site #2? Part 2: There are dozens of posts on site #1 that can be improved and updated. Is there an extra risk (or diminishing returns) associated with doing this across many posts? Hope this makes sense. Thanks for your help!
Technical SEO | | djreich0 -
Googlebot cannot access your site
"At the end of July I received a message in my Google webmaster tools saying "Googlebot can't access your site" We checked our robots.txt file and removed a line break in it, and then I had Google Fetch the file again. I have not received any more messages since then. When we created the website I wrote all of the content and optimized each page for about 1 local keyword. A few weeks after I checked my keywords and did have a few on the first page of google. Since then almost all of them have completely disappeared. Because we had not link building effort I would not expect to still be on the first page, but I should definitely be seeing them before the 5th or even 10th page of Google. The address is http://www.tile-pompanobeach.com I'm not sure if these horrible results have something to do with the message from Google or something else. The problem is this client now wants to sign a contract with us for SEO and I really have no Idea what happened and if I will be able to figure it out. The main keyword for my home page is tile pompano beach and I aslo was using Pompano Beach Tile store for the About page which was previously on the first page of Google. Does anyone have some input?
Technical SEO | | DTOSI0 -
Duplicate Content - Mobile Site
We think that a mobile version of our site is causing a duplicate content issue; what's the best way to stop the mobile version being indexed. Basically the site forwards mobile users to "/mobile" which is just a mobile optimised version of the original site. Is it best to block the /mobile folder from being crawled?
Technical SEO | | nsmith7870