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Google Hell: Is That Google Poo On Your Shoe?
May 22, 2007
One of the hottest topics these days in SEO forums, message boards, and blogs is Google's Supplemental Index. We've had some hearty discussions here at Intrapromote about GSI!
If you have a lot of web pages in Google's Supplemental Index, then you may refer to it as "Google Hell". A kinder, gentler reference I've seen is "The Google Poo".
Hell or poo, both stink and no one wants to have anything to do with them.
Perhaps most interesting ..... I have a feeling that hundreds of thousands of web sites have stepped in the poo unknowingly.
Heaven or Hell
Google's Supplemental Index (GSI), as defined by Google:
Supplemental sites are part of Google’s auxiliary index. We’re able to place fewer restraints on sites that we crawl for this supplemental index than we do on sites that are crawled for our main index. For example, the number of parameters in a URL might exclude a site from being crawled for inclusion in our main index; however, it could still be crawled and added to our supplemental index. The index in which a site is included is completely automated; there’s no way for you to select or change the index in which your site appears.
Did you get through that without falling asleep?
If you want to see if you have web pages in the GSI, simply replace "www.abc.com" below with your web address and search at Google for:
site:www.abc.com *** -view
Welcome To Hades. Have A Nice Day.
Here's what you need to know if you find you have pages in the GSI. Searches conducted at Google, with rare exception, will return pages in Google's Main Index. So, your pages in the GSI will have little opportunity to ever be found by potential site visitors. Pages in the GSI simply do not rank well.
However, when it comes to the GSI, you'll be glad to know that the wages of sin are not always death.
Google Reconciliation
Here's what to do if you want to smell better to Google. Take a close look at your web pages in the GSI:
First, check the quality of your web page content. Especially look to see if your pages contain duplicate content from other web pages in Google's Main or Supplemental index. The majority of the pages we've seen in the GSI have been banished there because they contain duplicate content. So, one way out of Google's lake of fire is to make sure your web pages have unique content.
Second, check the quantity of your web page content. We've seen a lot of pages in the GSI that have little or no content. Again, make your web pages as unique as possible.
Third, check the backlinks to your pages. We've seen a lot of GSI pages that do not have any links to them. If your page(s) are linkless, securing quality internal and external links from pages not in the GSI may prove to be your online salvation.
Lastly, once you have addressed the items above, resubmit your HTML or XML sitemap to Google.
see all posts by Doug Ausbury
posted by Doug Ausbury at May 22, 2007 02:29 PM
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Comments
Another thing to look at: how many total pages do you have and what is your PageRank? if your PageRank is too low, a certain # of your pages will go Supplemental.
You can control this to some degree via the weight you assign in the sitemap.xml. Make sure all the "important" pages have a high weight, and all less important pages have a low weight.
Posted by: Jeb at May 25, 2007 05:46 PM