u/guestoboard

My 4 year old son loves looking at abandoned, wrecked and rusty old cars and trucks. He calls them “creepy cars”

Problem is everyone’s cars in Marin are too nice and fancy. I’ve excitedly shown him rare Porsches, Lotus and even Ferraris, and taken him to the various classic and modified car shows, but nothing makes him smile like a rusty old beater with fungus growing all over it.

Where can I take him to reliably see some beat up old bangers? Is there even a car scrap yard in Marin? Or are we too fancy for that?

Can you answer what Gemini and Claude cannot?

I'm building a Fashion shopping/price comparison site, starting with shoes. Early days.

Google is refusing to index my most strategically important pages, rejecting my declared canonicals in favor of a ghost of an incorrect URL that has not existed for months.

We did a URL restructure in early March (added /shoes/ to the path so the site can expand into clothing later). All old URLs 308-redirect to new ones. Yet Google has been picking the redirecting old URLs as canonical for the new ones ever since.

Strategic page: /men/shoes/size-12/sneakers URL Google has selected as canonical: /men/size-12/sneakers (old, 308-redirects)

Timeline:

• March 2 — last successful Googlebot crawl of /men/size-12/sneakers. At that time the URL returned 200 with content.
• March 4 — redirects shipped. Every old URL now returns 308 to its /shoes/ equivalent.
• April 24 — first GSC "Request Indexing" submitted for old URL. Repeated every week or more
• May 28 — most recent crawl of the NEW URL. Google still picks the (March-2) cached version of the old URL as canonical.
• Today (~85 days post-redirect) — old URL has not been re-crawled. GSC still shows its last fetch as March 2.

The internal forensic detail I keep coming back to:

Google cites a different old URL — /men/size-9/loafers — as the "Referring page" for its canonical choice. When I inspect that referring URL:

• Last crawled March 16
• Status: "Crawled - currently not indexed"
• User-declared canonical: N/A
• Google-selected canonical: N/A

So Google has no canonical opinion of its own about the URL it's using as the canonical determinant for a different URL. The two old URLs form a small closed cluster in the index graph — each one "supports" the others via stale referrer data from pre-March-4, neither has been re-crawled since, and there appears to be no mechanism to break the cycle.

What we've verified is working correctly:

• 308 redirect works for all old URLs (curl -I confirms, Googlebot UA too)
• <link rel="canonical"> self-references on every new URL
• og:url, sitemap entries, internal links, structured data — all reference only new URLs
• Zero references to old URLs in code, components, or any sitemap we own
• Route is classified ● SSG in Next.js build output; ships Cache-Control: public, max-age=0, must-revalidate with x-vercel-cache: HIT on warm requests
• <meta name="robots">: index, follow on the new URL
• Full Product / CollectionPage / BreadcrumbList JSON-LD on the new URL, Organization + WebSite schema at the root layout
• No backlinks to speak of (small site, very few external links — so the canonical cluster isn't being held alive by external authority)
• "Validate Fix" in GSC has failed 3 separate times with identical diagnosis

What we've tried:

• GSC URL Inspection > Request Indexing on both old and new URLs, multiple rounds
• Re-submitted the canonical sitemap (sitemap-men-shoes.xml); it shows up under "Sitemaps" on the new URL's URL Inspection
• Submitted a dedicated legacy-redirects sitemap containing 774 old URLs specifically to force Google to re-crawl them and surface the 308s. The legacy sitemap IS being picked up — it shows as the "Sitemap" source on the old URL — but the old URL still hasn't been re-crawled.
• Removed a <meta name="generator">: v0.app tag that was causing Google to substitute the V0 platform icon for our favicon
• Fixed a /favicon.ico 404
• Resubmitted master sitemap multiple times

What we have NOT tried:

• X-Robots-Tag: noindex on the 308 response — unsure whether Google honors noindex on a redirect
• GSC URL Removals tool — got conflicting advice on whether this helps or just hides the symptom
• Indexing API — officially scoped to jobs/livestreams but in practice works for arbitrary URLs

Asking for:

1. Has anyone broken Google out of this kind of stale-graph loop after a migration? What worked?
2. Does X-Robots-Tag: noindex on a 308 actually get respected by Google, or does Google process the redirect and ignore the noindex on the redirecting URL?
3. Is GSC URL Removals genuinely useful here, or does it just suppress visible symptoms without prompting Google to re-evaluate?
4. Any angle I'm missing?

Setup: Next.js 16 on Vercel, single-domain site, ~1k products. Happy to share more technical detail in comments if helpful.

I can't believe Google can be so stubborn clinging to an old url and ignore my multiple requests telling it what the right answer is. seems crazy there is no way I can override it.

thank you in advance for anyone that can save my sight and my sanity from this loop

Selling in Marin, SF North Bay, thinking ~$160 but open to offers from fans that will appreciate it.

More pictures on Facebook marketplace - am I allowed to post link here?

Pristine Apple Cinema HD Display 23" (Aluminum) - Collector Grade - SF Bay Area

**Description:**

For the Apple enthusiast or retro-computing collector: This is a remarkably well-preserved 23-inch Apple Cinema HD Display (Model A1082). If you are looking to complete a period-correct PowerMac G5 or Mac Pro setup, this is the "Matte" centerpiece you’ve been hunting for.

Unlike most units on the market, this display has been kept in a professional, smoke-free environment and remains in stunning aesthetic condition.

**The Highlights:**

* **Chassis:** Mint condition. The aluminum bezel and stand are free of the typical dings, scratches, or "pitting" found on these models.

* **Backlight:** Strong and vibrant. Critically, there is ZERO "pink tint"—a common failure in aged CCFL displays. It hits full brightness instantly.

* **Panel:** This is the sought-after matte finish (non-glossy). While there is some very light "mura" (soft clouding) visible only on a pure white background—typical for a 20-year-old CCFL panel—it is invisible during normal use and color work.

**Included Essentials:**

* Original Apple 90W Power Brick (often sold separately for $50+).

* Original DVI integrated cable (clean, no fraying).

* **Bonus:** DVI to Mini DisplayPort adapter included for plug-and-play use with 2008–2015 Macs.

**Specs:**

* Resolution: 1920 x 1200 (16:10 aspect ratio)

* Ports: 2x USB 2.0, 2x FireWire 400

* Connection: DVI-D

This is a premium legacy display for a buyer who appreciates the iconic industrial design of the Jobs/Ive era.

*Serious buyers only. I am happy to power it on for a "white screen" inspection upon pickup to verify the lack of pink tint.*