Google's Supplemental Results

John Scott · 12-26-2006, 01:06 AM

I think Google is going is bit overboard on the throwing of pages into the Supplemental index, especially on blogs.

Take for example this blog post:

http://www.internet-marketing-blog.c...link-building/

There are many pages that the content can be seen on:

http://www.internet-marketing-blog.com/
http://www.internet-marketing-blog.c...ry/seo-google/
http://www.internet-marketing-blog.com/2006/12/

I haven't looked at how Google deals with WordPress, but on Movable Type blogs I see they are throwing all but one page that contains the content into the supplemental index.

Google says to design sites for users, but if you do that they screw you.

Diddy1 · 12-27-2006, 09:19 PM

Wordpress as far as I know isn't affected by this. I've got a couple of wordpress blogs and google treats them like kings. By the way nice blog.

Thank you

gazetelercn · 12-30-2006, 04:30 AM

I have a question.. What is the Supplemental index page and what different index page? (Sorry my english is terrible

) I am waitng for your answer... thanks..

John Scott · 01-01-2007, 07:58 PM

http://www.google.com/support/webmas...y?answer=34473

**Cricket** · 01-01-2007, 08:59 PM

John, are you finding this mostly with short posts?

John Scott · 01-01-2007, 10:17 PM

Not that I'm noticing.

jorken · 01-02-2007, 12:01 AM

imo, getting pages in supplemental index should not matter much, especially if your content is already visible via other pages.

Quote:

Google says to design sites for users, but if you do that they screw you.

dont believe google. most of the time what they preach dont measure upto what the do.

TheBrain · 01-03-2007, 01:14 PM

If you haven't seen this yet, here is a link to Matt Cutts answers Google questions: - Supplemental Results. Pretty interesting, if you ask me.

Will.Spencer · 01-03-2007, 01:34 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by John Scott

http://www.google.com/support/webmas...y?answer=34473

I love how this page says "Please also be assured that the index in which a site is included doesn't affect its PageRank" -- but doesn't say anything about how being in the supplemental index affects the SERPS.

Google speaks with forked tongue.

vangogh · 01-03-2007, 03:46 PM

John did you see the thread we have going about WordPress going posts going supplemental.

It happened to me last summer and after a little bit of research I found a solution that worked to get out of the supplemental index along with some other ideas to help with duplicate content issues.

With my site Google was indexing the feeds and throwing every page into my blog into supplemental hell. A couple of changes to robots.txt solved everything.

You'd think given the popularity of blogs Google would figure this out and deal with it better, but then again they still can't get that domain.com and www.domain.com are the same site.

MrMean · 01-03-2007, 05:14 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by vangogh

but then again they still can't get that domain.com and www.domain.com are the same site.

I was under the impression this could now be done with Google Sitemaps? I could of course, most likely, be wrong

vangogh · 01-06-2007, 09:43 AM

I think you're right. I've seen it within Google's Webmaster Tools. I'm not sure it's in the SiteMaps part or not, but the option is in there somewhere.

Google should be able to figure this out on their own though, without us having to tell them. Think of all the people who not only won't have signed up for Webmaster Tools, but will never have heard of it.

It really shouldn't be all that hard for Google to deal with this without us having to tell them. I have the www non-www thing taken care of through .htaccess, but you're right that you can tell Google through Webmaster Tools. Not having done it that way I have no idea if it works or not, but I assume it does.

NeO · 01-24-2007, 07:54 PM

Thought I'd pop in and see if anyone had a pro-active way to handle this problem?

The last few days supplemental results have been mentioned on several different shows on webmaster radio... the best quote "supplemental results are nothing to be scared of" *unless you make your living from the organic traffic

So I currently have a client w/ a 10 yr old website that just had almost 31,000 pages dumped into the supplementals... we've been scrambling for the last month and have been able to pull pages out on other sites owned by the same org... but to no avail for the others yet...

Is it really time to start getting tricky with 301's? or is there another way?

NeO

vangogh · 01-29-2007, 03:14 PM

They're could be a number of reasons for being dumped into the supplemental index. One reason might be a lot of duplicate content. With 31,000 pages how many are truly unique?

For example if you have product pages that can be accessed based on different size or color and each way to get to the page gives a different URL, but the content on each page is the same other than the size, color then Google is going to put all but one of those product pages in the supplemental index.

It might also have to do with how the site is or isn't linking. Matt Cutts wrote about it in his Indexing Timeline post awhile back. The idea is that too much reciprocal linking with unrelated sites could lead many pages of a site to go supplemental.

I think most cases of being in the supplemental index have to do with either duplicate content or reciprocal linking issues.

rankland · 01-30-2007, 12:09 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Will.Spencer

I love how this page says "Please also be assured that the index in which a site is included doesn't affect its PageRank" -- but doesn't say anything about how being in the supplemental index affects the SERPS.

Google speaks with forked tongue.

My site is being worked on rt. now in google, because i havn't put my titals and disciptions to get my pages out, but it hasn't effected my serp or page rank.
Obviously my site would be even better once i get these pages done, but i haven't lost any position for 9 mo. on a 1 yr old directory. I only have 2 pages in google INDEXED, but i have high or top position all over the board. I really dont believe being supplemental index effects your serp... matter fact my site already proved that wrong.
I cant wait to see my new results when i put on my titals and disriptions on board.

explicitzone.com · 02-16-2007, 06:55 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by vangogh

I think most cases of being in the supplemental index have to do with either duplicate content or reciprocal linking issues.

I agree with this statement.

rankland · 02-16-2007, 07:58 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by explicitzone.com

I agree with this statement.

When i submit a link .. You have to a tital and disciption.... same thing for google... when he bots your page he has to be able to identify each category..to bot that page, and in order to do this you must have tital and disciption in each category.... It has nothing to do with copying pages or reciprical linking.

solidghost · 02-17-2007, 08:44 AM

As well as having inbound links to that category.
Alive directory has the same description on each category, but none (from what I have seen) has gone into supplemental. Think it got something to do with quality inbound links.

trichnosis · 02-17-2007, 07:24 PM

one of my site has 10k süpp. pages which has no dublicate content and no outgoing link . supp. pages has started to become a hell and nobody know why it is