Search Marketing Blog
Google Removes “Supplemental Results” Label
Posted by Kent Schnepp on 08.01.2007
Google recently announced on their official Webmaster Central Blog that they will no longer label supplemental results within the search results pages. Supplemental results provide a way to index more pages from the web without having to search through each page in detail. According to Google:
The supplemental index made it possible to index even more web pages and, just like our main web index, make this content available when generating relevant search results for user queries. This was especially useful for queries that did not return many results from the main web index, and for these the supplemental index allowed us to query even more web pages.
The problem with supplemental pages is that they are not revisited by Google on a regualar basis. Often these pages are not indexed again for several months. So the idea of not knowing if pages are stuck in the supplemental index is a major concern for SEOs and Webmasters. However, Google states:
Since 2006, we’ve completely overhauled the system that crawls and indexes supplemental results. The current system provides deeper and more continuous indexing. Additionally, we are indexing URLs with more parameters and are continuing to place fewer restrictions on the sites we crawl. As a result, Supplemental Results are fresher and more comprehensive than ever. We’re also working towards showing more Supplemental Results by ensuring that every query is able to search the supplemental index, and expect to roll this out over the course of the summer.
So, is Google effectively saying that the supplemental results have become as important as the results in the primary index? Or will Google provide a new tool to identify supplemental results within the Webmaster account console? I believe the later. After all, does labeling a search result as supplemental really improve the user’s experience? And user experience combined with the best search results has made Google into the power house it is today.
Adam 08.01.2007 at 11:09 am
Leave it to Google to constantly change the rules. I think your right that supplementals will still exist in some form, otherwise there would be tons of SPAM pages that would need to be dealt with. Until a new tool to track these “banned pages” is provided, SEL posted a hack (site:www.domain.com/&) that pulls up pages that were previously tagged supplemental.
Kent Schnepp 08.01.2007 at 11:21 am
Adam -
Thanks for the comment. I wonder how long site:www.domain.com/& will work. See you at the next SEMpdx event!