g1smd - 9:40 pm on Oct 5, 2006 (gmt 0)

>> I thought the removal tool meant a specific request that Google no longer have that URL/page in their database. <<

No. It just removes the URL from view for six months... and then it shows up again.

>> so if I put a noindex tag on the supplemental version of the url, the preferred version might get to become unduplicated and return to the regular index? <<

There is no "supplemental version of the URL", but I do know what you mean by that.

There is some content available at multiple URLs, some or all of which get tagged as supplemental. There is one URL that you want to be indexed, and all the others are the duplicates.

If the other URL is a www vs. non-www problem or is simply on another domain, then the 301 redirect is the correct thing to apply to all of the alternative URLs. That will get the "main" URL properly indexed very quickly. The alternatives will continue to show as Supplemental for a year - and that is NOT a problem just as long as those other URLs do return a 301 status.

If the problem is through URLs with parameters in a different order, or a different number of parameters, then the redirect may be used for some of them, but adding the meta robots noindex tag on some versions may also be a good choice to get the alternative URLs deindexed.

There is no need to use the removal tool at all. Google will quickly pick up the 301 and 404 status of the alternative URLs and do what is necessary internally. The pages will show as Supplemental for a long time, but that is not a problem.