Over the past few weeks, I've noticed that there has been an increase in the number of pages for some of my client's sites that are appearing in Google's Supplemental Index. It's appears to be a common theme on many of the forums and blogs out there.
If you are noticing the same thing, don't fret it's not that bad of a thing to have your pages fall into the supplemental index. Matt Cutts of Google recently stated that "...Having urls in the supplemental results doesn’t mean that you have some sort of penalty at all....".
The main reason you are seeing more supplemental results for your pages is because in the end of January, Google completed a Page Rank Update. Combine this with the fact that the main determinant of whether a url is Google's main index or in the supplemental index is PageRank.
Here are some points to remember with Supplemental Results:
1. Google is looking for the most relevant results out there. Pages that are old or are "past expiration" should be updated to ensure they remain in the main index.
Pages that are buried within your website may be considered as less useful and therefore less authoratative so Google will most likely remove them from the main index and place them in the supplemental index... thereby making way for the most relvant content for their main index.
2. Google (and the other search engines) are always looking for fresh and relevant content. So are your users for that matter. Give the people what they want. Sick of hearing the analogy that "Content is King"? You shouldn't be, as this is what the engines need to fuel their machines.
3. Interlink your site well. Help internal pages inherit Page Rank by linking to them.
4. Avoid Duplicate Content on your site - a site that has too much similar text on each page could land you in the supplemental index. Try to have unique data on each page with unique meta data, title tags and keywords.
5. It is possible that Supplemental Results are not trusted (or considered as authoratative) and may rarely rank as they are not crawled as often.
Search Engine Watch recently reported the fact that site owner's are seeing more results fall in Google's Supplemental Index. If you are concerned, just remember to interlink your deeper site pages and make sure that they use unique content. Remember that relevancy and usefulness is the key. Dont' spend this Valentines' day worrying about the Supplemental Index. Focus on your love for the engines and they will return the love back.
Labels: google supplemental results, index, matt cutts, valentine's day
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