7 replies to this topic

[fromtherooftops]

I have a question about the supplemental index. I know that it's been given a bigger role by G lately with duplicate content. My company's site has almost 10,000 dynamically driven pages. The web module of the CMS we use isn't very flexible, but it does allow for the product's name to appear in the title. Outside of that, the only way to make the pages unique are to create original copy for all the products.

Here's the problem - getting our small staff to write original copy for 10,000 products isn't going to happen. They copy and paste the product descriptions from the manufacturers (just like many other web based retailers). I tell them to write original copy, but they just won't.

My question - is my site in the supplemental index more often because the product description copy is similar to other ecommerce sites' copy? Or is it in supplemental index because the dynamic pages look too similar to Google in code design, and a lack of strong SEO recognized tags (h1, alt)?

Thanks!

[qwerty]

According to Google, neither. Vanessa Fox (who just left Google, but was the head of Webmaster Tools) recently wrote the following about the supplemental index:

Does having duplicate content cause sites to be placed there? Nope, that's mostly an indirect effect. If you have pages that are duplicates or very similar, then your backlinks are likely distributed among those pages, so your PageRank may be more diluted than if you had one consolidated page that all the backlinks pointed to. And lower PageRank may cause pages to be supplemental.

However, there are reasons other than getting out of supplemental to make the changes you're talking about. If your content is the same as all the other sites selling the same items, then why would a search engine send people to your site instead of the other ones? Unless your site has so much authority that all the others out there are going to be ignored, yours will be ignored. You need unique content to show up in the SERPs, even if the pages that come up on the SERP are listed as supplemental.

[Jill]

Your whole site is in supplemental index? Usually it's just some pages, and it's usually pages you don't care about.

If your people don't want to write copy, that's fine, but yeah, those duplicate pages will probably remain in supplemental results. It's not a penalty or anything though, so don't worry about it until you have the time and resources to create something unique.

[fromtherooftops]

Thanks all. Yeah, even my completely unique about us page is in supplemental. I seem to have a page or two that isn't always in the supplemental.

If you have pages that are duplicates or very similar, then your backlinks are likely distributed among those pages

When Vanessa says backlinks, she's only talking about other sites linking to me, right? She doesn't necessarily mean links from my homepage to a specific product page right? This is always difficult for me, because a company that has 10,000 products that are as generic as an Amazon.com doesn't usually have links to any product in general. I don't think I've ever seen a link from a site to a (for example) pogo stick on amazon.com. I'm sure nobody is linking to any of my pages but our homepage.

[Jill]

backlinks are all links. If you're not linking to the pages throughout your site, you're showing that they're not important, therefore they would be supplemental.

[Alan Perkins]

This is always difficult for me, because a company that has 10,000 products that are as generic as an Amazon.com doesn't usually have links to any product in general.

Typically one might expect most external backlinks to go to your home page, some to theme (i.e. list of categories) pages, some to category (i.e. list of products) pages and a few to individual product pages.

[Michael Martinez]

Google has so far indicated that only one factor determines which pages go into the Supplemental Index. That doesn't mean there are not other factors, but any reference to other factors is purely speculative and is without any credible support.

Googlers such as Matt Cutts, Adam Lasnik, and (now former Googler) Vanessa Fox have all stated multiple times that the determining factor is how much (internal, not Toolbar) PageRank a page has accunulated. So Vanessa's backlinks reference is really more applicable to links from other sites, and less applicable to your internal links, but it still applies to all links.

You get PageRank from other people (and initially from Google).

You distribute PageRank throughout your site with your internal links. Internal linkage is extremely important and I have seen a number of sites that were able to improve their Web Index to Supplemental Index ratios by improving their internal linkage.

That is not a cure-all solution. It's just that some people really do have a lot of good inbound links but they don't help the PageRank flow through their site very well.

If all your pages are in the Supplemental Index, then most likely none of your backlinks are passing value.

[OldWelshGuy]

If all your pages are in the Supplemental Index, then most likely none of your backlinks are passing value.

OR all of your links are un-spiderable and Google has picked the pages up from your sitemap, they can't get PR transferred through the unfriendly links, so they are placed in the SI. I have seen this happen a few times with AJAX sites.