Google Supplemental Index

"Dammed to obscurity in Google's Supplemental Index..." OK, this may be a bit dramatic, but there's some truth to it. Google's Supplemental Results are website pages that are judged by Google as more questionable search results, so they're shown last (and sometimes not at all). So why are they in the Supplemental Index? Website pages with content problems, confusing URLs, and Metatag problems often land up in Google's Supplemental Index.

There are two types of (non-sponsored) search results Google comes up with. The first comes from Google's Main Search Index where the major websites volley for the chance to get a lot of attention, high rankings, and new traffic. These are the results that show up with most search result inquiries.

The second type of (non-sponsored) search result from Google is a supplemental result. Supplemental results usually show up when Google's search engine doesn't find decent search results in the Main Search Index. Supplemental results aren't as trusted by Google. They aren't banned, but they are considered less important than Main Search Results. Hence, they aren't crawled as often, or indexed as often. And, if they're lucky enough to even get ranked, they're ranked pretty near last place.

Google only presents supplemental results as a last resort. So, if a large portion of your website is sitting in Google's Supplemental Index, this is really bad for traffic. It's unlikely that these pages will do any good at attracting new customers or driving traffic to your website or business.

To rescue website pages from the Supplemental Index, check to make sure pages have enough content. Pages with insufficient text (perhaps too graphic heavy) may end up in the Supplemental Index. Another critical issue is duplicate text. A flag goes up if your website page text is copied from other pages (or if someone is copying your text). You can check out website pages to make sure they don't have duplicate content somewhere else by using Copyscape. You can also get a general idea of duplicate text problems just by googling a few phrases from your webpages.

If your website has some webpages on the Supplemental Index Results, this is usually not a huge concern, particularly if you've just added new pages. It will take Google a while to index new webpages. But if most or all of your website is landing in the Supplemental Index Results, this becomes a critical issue. Most likely, no one will find you online. If you find yourself in this situation, it's time to do some serious doctoring on your website.

Depending on how high the ratio of your Main Index Results to Supplemental Index pages is, your site may issues relating to poor Information Architecture. (You can calculate your Supplemental Index Ratio by dividing your Main Index Results by Supplemental Index Results.) If main pages end up in Google's Supplemental Results listings, this is a pretty good idea that your website needs some help.