Google Dumps Supplemental Index Tag

[RayB]

Hi All,

For those that are interested in all things Google Search I thought you would like to know they have dumped the Supplemental Result label - the official announement can be read on their blog (http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2007/07/supplemental-goes-mainstream.html)

You need to read the post carefully - in essence the supplemental index still exists - just the label is dropped - but the stated intention is to narrow the gap between the main and supplemental indexes - perhaps they will revert to having just one main index in time - who knows!?

[DotNetWebs]

Hi RayB

Many thanks for posting this link. Trying to get pages out of the supplemental index is one of my main focuses at the moment.

I must admit that having read all the 'official' Google information about the supplemental index together with many opinions on forums and blogs etc. I am still unclear as to what possible benefit having two separate indexes brings to anybody outside Google.

For instance I have many pages on my Visit Horsham (http://www.visithorsham.co.uk) site that constantly switch between the main and supplemental indexes. On the days that they appear in the main index they rank no1 for certain search phrases and on the days that they are in the supplemental they are nowhere to bee seen.

Conventional wisdom has it that as my site is relatively young and has low PR Google will only 'allow' a certain number of pages into the main index. To a certain extent I can control which sites make it into the main index by putting a link to them on the home page. The usual advice for indexing the remaining pages is to seek 'deep links'. Trying to get backlinks for a dynamic directory style site is not really practicable though.

So I am obviously not impressed by the Supplemental Index from a site owners POV. I am also not impressed with it from a users POV. Often the information you are looking for is on a page that is in the Supplemental Index and would return a no1 result if it were in the main index. Instead you get a lot of far less relevant results often generated from the individual words in your search phrase rather than the phrase itself.

I can't see what benefit there is in dropping the Supplemental LABEL, other than making it harder to know what type of result you are looking at! I suppose the only good thing about it is they do appear to be moving in the right direction. Hopefully this will eventually lead to the dropping of the supplemental index altogether and the adoption of a single unified index.

Regards

Dotty

ps I have just noticed you are just down the road from me. I like your website and your products. I am often getting printing done and may well contact you next time. I also regularly have contact with businesses in the Horsham area and know many are often looking for printing. Please feel free to register on the Horsham Forum. I can then easily point them in the right direction.

[DotNetWebs]

I can confirm this has already happened

Just did a "site:www.visithorsham.co.uk" and all pages were shown but none had a supplemental label.

However doing a "site:www.visithorsham.co.uk/*" still returns only those currently in the main index.

Regards

Dotty

[SteveGibson]

Unless they're going to do away with the supp index, I think this is a pain in the arse.

I saw nothing wrong with the serps showing "supplemental index" and, if you own a site, it's useful to be able to quickly check what's in the supp index.

However doing a "site:www.visithorsham.co.uk/*" still returns only those currently in the main index.

Is this true? And does it bring up everything that's not supp?

Steve

[DotNetWebs]

...Is this true? And does it bring up everything that's not supp?

Steve

There has been some question about its accuracy but having checked all my Visit Horsham pages almost every day since site launch I am certain it is correct (for my sites at least).

Regards

Dotty

[SteveGibson]

There has been some question about its accuracy but having checked all my Visit Horsham pages almost every day since site launch I am certain it is correct (for my sites at least).

You could be right.

Using one of my sites, it's bringing up a couple of pages that were supplemental, but they've both been re-indexed since I checked them last week, so it could be straight.

On another site, it's not listing a static page that's normally in the index proper and a couple of blog posts aren't coming up that were non-supp last week.

But these things can happen, particularly if they've altered the supp index rules along with this change.

Steve

[RayB]

For instance I have many pages on my Visit Horsham (http://www.visithorsham.co.uk/) site that constantly switch between the main and supplemental indexes. On the days that they appear in the main index they rank no1 for certain search phrases and on the days that they are in the supplemental they are nowhere to bee seen.

Dotty - maybe you could do an experiment with pages you know were popping in and out of the SERPS due to popping in and out of main index.

If those pages still continue to do the same the supplemental index is still as it was - and just the label is missing?

ps I have just noticed you are just down the road from me. I like your website and your products. I am often getting printing done and may well contact you next time. I also regularly have contact with businesses in the Horsham area and know many are often looking for printing. Please feel free to register on the Horsham Forum. I can then easily point them in the right direction

Thanks for that - I'll drop by the Forum !

[kathdawson]

I think Google were getting a bit sick of the backlash theywere getting about pages labelled as supplemental when they shouldn't have been categorised this way. By getting rid of the tag we can't be specific about our complaints.

We have been monitoring this closely for the last 6 months for all of our clients as we know supplemental pages don't perform & when we work on them specifically to get them in the main index and ranked highly then they do work. Ocassionally large chunks of sites went supplemental for a couple of days or even sometimes pages would stay there for weeks but as soon as they were rescued they brought traffic again.

It has been suggested that Google may include this in the webmaster tools which would be a great compromise - fingers crossed for that!

Kath

[sirearl]

Bit confused by all this,before if I had pages in the supps I could work on those pages to get them in the main index.

Now I have to guess which pages are in the supps,and how the hell am I going to know if a page is not ranking because of my poor SEO or because its still in the supps ?

I may have misunderstood there intentions ,but as I run 1,000's of pages this could be a major problem,and the cat may have to go on Tesco's own brand.;)

Earl

[RayB]

because of my poor SEO

Earl

Earl,

It comes as a major shock that you do "poor SEO" - I thought you were the best in the world - somebody told me so -ah yes - I think it was you :)

Joking apart - study your stats and this will tell you all.

I cannot experiment with this stuff - all my pages were in the main index so I have no point of reference ;)

[sirearl]

Cause I do poor SEO ,its even been known for me to get no higher than No 5 on google.

I am an avid state reader but don't think they can help indentify the supps page on this one.

any other opinions so I can stop panicking:)

Earl

[RayB]

Cause I do poor SEO ,its even been known for me to get no higher than No 5 on google.

I am an avid state reader but don't think they can help indentify the supps page on this one.

any other opinions so I can stop panicking:)

Earl

Earl - joking apart again - think logically - there are 2 reasons for a page to be supplemental:

1. The page does not have enough PageRank
2. The page is duplicate content

So, increase 1. and eliminate 2. and all will be well.

Of course you know this already - being a top SEO and all :p

[DotNetWebs]

Dotty - maybe you could do an experiment with pages you know were popping in and out of the SERPS due to popping in and out of main index.

If those pages still continue to do the same the supplemental index is still as it was - and just the label is missing?



Thanks for that - I'll drop by the Forum !

The supplemental index is definitely still there and I can easily prove which of my pages is in which index.

For example on my home page I have a "featured location" I have many "locations" on this site nut currently the only way I can get them in the primary index is to link from the home page.

e.g "Market Square" is currently the "featured location" a Google for "Market Square Horsham (http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&q=Market+Square+Horsham&btnG=Search&meta=)" returns no2 in the serps. I can prove the page is fully indexed by searching for some quoted text from this page e.g "This building was built by the Duke of Norfolk in 1812 (http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&q=This+building+was+built+by+the+Duke+of+Norfolk+i n+1812&btnG=Search&meta=)" which returns no1 (in fact the only result) as you may expect

A few week ago "West Street" was the "featured location" and a Google for "West Street Horsham (http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&q=West+Street+Horsham&btnG=Search&meta=)" returned no1 As you can see it is now nowhere to be seen. The page is in the supplemental index and can be found but only with a very long tail query "West Street Horsham visithorsham (http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&q=West+Street+Horsham+visithorsham&btnG=Search&meta=)" which returns no1. If I now try a "quoted text search" e.g "This fully pedestrianised area plays host to a varied selection of national retailers (http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&q=%22This+fully+pedestrianised+area+plays+host+to+ a+varied+selection+of+national+retailers%22&meta=)" nothing is found.

The annoying thing is if I switch "West Street" to the featured location it will rank front page again (probably no1) but "Market Square" will be relegated to the supplementals again.

I said before I think the supplemental index is bad for web users as well as website owners. I think my examples illustrate that because the supplemental index clearly does not index the entire page content as my quoted text example illustrate. Yet these pages may well contain the information the user is looking for but is being denied because, for reasons other than the page content alone, Google has decided to relegate them from the main index.

The ironic thing is this page will now probably rank higher than my supplemental pages for the terms I have highlighted. So if anybody has come hear looking for information on Horsham please see the links in my signature!

Regards

Dotty

[DotNetWebs]

Earl - joking apart again - think logically - there are 2 reasons for a page to be supplemental:

1. The page does not have enough PageRank
..

This for me (as a web user) is the most annoying thing about Google. A page may well have the information I am looking for but Google does not deem is suitable for inclusion into the main index because it does not yet have sufficient Page Rank or there are insufficient sites of appropriate Page Rank linking to it.

As a website developer it also makes it very difficult to develop sites that have a lot of growing dynamic content. Sites like Wikipedia do ok because they are highly trusted and have high Page Rank but it's an uphill battle for us mere mortals.

Regards

Dotty

[DotNetWebs]

...
It has been suggested that Google may include this in the webmaster tools which would be a great compromise - fingers crossed for that!

Kath

That would be very useful

Regards

Dotty

[DotNetWebs]

Wow three (now 4) posts in a row. You can tell "supplemental pages" are my main area of focus at the moment.

Regards

Dotty

[sirearl]

Earl - joking apart again - think logically - there are 2 reasons for a page to be supplemental:

1. The page does not have enough PageRank
2. The page is duplicate content

So, increase 1. and eliminate 2. and all will be well.

Of course you know this already - being a top SEO and all :p

Afraid there's a few more reasons than that ,not having any page rank is not one of them and Duplicate content has to be over 85% to be counted as duplicate :p

Earl

[RayB]

Afraid there's a few more reasons than that ,not having any page rank is not one of them and Duplicate content has to be over 85% to be coumted as duplicate :p

Earl

Earl,

This time you are just simply wrong - please give your other reasons for a page going supplemental or defer to a better man :|

[RayB]

The supplemental index is definitely still there and I can easily prove which of my pages is in which index.

Dotty, keep up the testing - this wil be the true test - I am reading your posts with interest and you have the basis of a "scientific" sample to test against.

[sirearl]

Earl,

This time you are just simply wrong - please give your other reasons for a page going supplemental or defer to a better man :|


click on the 3rd result no page rank ?;)

http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&rls=GGLG%2CGGLG%3A2006-07%2CGGLG%3Aen&q=atv+parts+kent&btnG=Search&meta=cr%3DcountryUK%7CcountryGB

http://atvquadshop.co.uk/about.htm


Earl

[RayB]

click on the 3rd result no page rank ?;)

http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&rls=GGLG%2CGGLG%3A2006-07%2CGGLG%3Aen&q=atv+parts+kent&btnG=Search&meta=cr%3DcountryUK%7CcountryGB (http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&rls=GGLG%2CGGLG%3A2006-07%2CGGLG%3Aen&q=atv+parts+kent&btnG=Search&meta=cr%3DcountryUK%7CcountryGB)

http://atvquadshop.co.uk/about.htm


Earl

Earl,

I gave 2 reasons for pages going supplemental lack of PageRank or duplicate content - your examples above simply show of one of my already stated reasons, both of which are fairly well documented by Google, yet you intimated "other reasons" in your earlier posts.

Seems you have more reasons that Googe and the rest of us know nothing about - now is one of those "put up or shut up" moments - could make you famous (or infamous) :)

[sirearl]

Ray You don't want to believe everything Google says there in it for the money.:cool:

We don't do Fame ,cash only;)


Earl

[RayB]

Ray You don't want to believe everything Google says there in it for the money.:cool:

We don't do Fame ,cash only;)


Earl


And no answers - thought so ;)

[DarrenC]

As requested in the 'other' post:

Well, it's not good if you can't see which page is in the supplemental index.

I've just wrote a post about this such subject for those with blogs who have posts with supplemental results.

http://www.blogged-out.com/2007/08/02/tip-to-get-rid-of-supplemental-pages-in-google/

Having a good sitemap, will help.

[RayB]

Dotty,

Have you any updated news on what you are seeing on this - You seem to have the best "point of reference" ?

[DotNetWebs]

Dotty,

Have you any updated news on what you are seeing on this - You seem to have the best "point of reference" ?

Hi Ray

As far as I can see nothing much has changed. My supplemental pages are still 'supplemental', they are just no longer labeled as such. I will keep monitoring them and keep you informed.

Interestingly last week I had one go 'supplemental' on me for a few days quite possibly due to an oversight in my content management system. All subscribers on the Visit Horsham website have the ability to upload their own images. When I originally wrote the code I had intended to incorporate automatic image resizing if the uploaded images exceeded a certain size. Unfortunately it is one of those thing that has not yet made it off the "to do" list due to new features having taken priority.

Last week I noticed one of the pages that previously ranked no1 for it's key search phrase no longer appeared in the main index. The web stats also showed the preciously high volume of traffic had also all been severely reduced. When I looked at the page in question I found that all the content of the fixed width (800px) page had been replaced by a small portion of an extremely large photograph. One of our subscribers had uploaded an image direct from a high resolution camera with out first resizing it. The result was that the page formatting was destroyed and the majority of the text on the page was no longer visible in the browser window.

It may be a coincidence but it would appear that Google was able to detect that much of the content was unreadable and dropped the page into the supplemental index. The day after the error was corrected the page was back at no1 producing high volumes of traffic. IF this was the 'supplemental' effect then I think that this is the sort of thing that the supplemental index should be used for. i.e. 'problem' pages rather than pages that simply do not have enough back links or page rank of their own (even though they may well contain the content you are looking for).

Regards

Dotty