Search Marketing Digest - The State of the Supplemental Index (And What You Should Know About It)
Written by Derek Edmond on August 10th, 2007I’ve decided to dedicate this week’s Search Marketing Digest to providing a summary of some of the discussions going on regarding Google, Google’s Supplemental Index, and the changes they have made that have everyone involved in search discussing it. This post is for our clients, whom are sure to have heard something about this or will hear something about this in the near future.
Here is a Summary of What You Need to Know:
- Google has a database of web pages that are known as the Supplemental Index.
- You could tell if a search result was from the Supplemental Index if you saw something like this (Note where it reads “Supplement Result”):
- There are a variety of factors as to why web pages get put into the Supplemental Index, but it is generally considered a negative to have page content in this index.
- It’s considered “bad” because Supplemental Index Results will only appear when there is a lack of available results in their main index (usually the case for search results, although there may be exceptions to this rule).
- Google has recently decided to remove the label they had used to allow website owners to check if their pages are in the Supplemental Index, even though there is no clear indication when the Supplemental Index will be removed or absorbed completely.
- One could assume (since Google states this) that this is because Google wants website owners to sign up for their webmaster tool services and build/improve their sites in a way that Google likes (I added that last part).
- Google states that the Supplemental Index is a function of outdated technology and that the shortening gap between the traditional index and the supplemental index is such that you (we) should no longer worry about this issue.
- However if that were the case, why would they continually remove search query functionality that would allow Search Engine Marketers to uncover where Supplemental Results are still present?
- Being able to view the Supplemental Index (in the form of actual results) was beneficial because it helped website owners identify what pages they needed to work on more efficiently in order to achieve a better website presence. Perhaps a compromise to this issue is to have Supplemental Results listed in each webmaster’s own Google Webmaster Account, which may be another value-ad for getting people to sign up anyway.
What You Should Consider
First, I do not believe that any of our clients had any dramatic issues with their web pages being cast into the dreaded Supplemental Index, but if you are really worried, here are a few things to consider and evaluate.
- Jim Boykin has a very good post on checking contextual indicators related to your website that may lead to the identification of supplemental results. The summary is this:
- Copy and paste 7 - 10 words of text found on a web page in question.
- Enter the exact phrase into Google’s search field, wrapping the text in quotations.
- If the exact web page does not appear #1 in the search results, that page is probably stuck in the Supplemental Index, even though Google will not tell you so.
- FYI: Make certain that you use a string of words that you feel confident will be unique in terms of content.
I’ve actually tried this on a few pages of content for sites I KNOW were in the Supplemental Index (prior to these updates) and have seen comparable results - meaning that I am pretty comfortable that these pages are supplemental, even though Google is not telling me so.
- In Addition:
Focus on optimizing content to avoid any and all duplication issues. This is really important for new blogs (especially those that are not a component of an existing domain name) but can happen in many instances, unbeknown to a webmaster. I intend to write a follow up post on this next week with some tips and examples, particularly for avoiding duplicate content in blog development. - Make certain that you have unique HTML Titles, Meta Descriptions and Page Headings. If your site is a larger, e-commerce driven site (which lots of similar page content), that may mean developing a logical process for creating unique Titles, Meta Descriptions and Headings “programmatically”.
- Cross-link your most valuable pages so that search engines (and users) are finding the key pieces of information relevant to your website, in a way that makes sense and adds value to the user experience (I know this is subjective, but I’m lacking an easy way to explain this at the moment).
- Obtain high quality, inbound links to your internal pages. Obviously this is easier said that done, but it’s just as important to have a good inbound link imprint for your whole website, in addition to the home page. This is one piece of Google Webmaster Tool reporting functionality that I really do enjoy and find very valuable.
- Make certain that you have an End-User Sitemap page, which gives search engines the ability to crawl and index the main components/web pages of your website in one single location.
- Place a stronger emphasis on your web analytics data to determine what pages are performing poorly, in terms of bounce rates, page views and the relationship between search engine keyword queries.
Final Note: There is nothing listed in the last 6 bullets that we would not be recommending anyways and it would seem unlikely that Google will change their stance on removing the Supplemental Label because Search Marketers were upset (maybe we can get some Fortune 500 companies together though…). Through the continued improve of your overall website presence through quality content development, the acquisition of inbound links and leveraging the knowledge of web analytics reports and competitive analysis, you’ll avoid the Supplemental Index, and hopefully will not even remember that it was there in the first place.
