NoLimits - 9:29 pm on Dec 7, 2005 (gmt 0)

It has become apparent that Google's way of punishing sites is to put them in the supplemental index.

That's all fine and good... if you want to find thousands of pages of crap when searching for obscure topics.

The problem with the supplemental index is that quality sites are disappearing into it, and they are being mixed in with an endless amount of filth...spam...whatever you refer to it as. The ratio of spammy pages in the supplemental index compared to the number of good pages has to be 100:1 or greater, or so it seems when searching through Google.

So with an ever growing number of sites completely disappearing from the regular index and finding themselves lost in the mass of unranked supplemental pages one would think that Google's result quality should be suffering.

My question: Is the supplemental index out of control? It seems to be sucking up things for little/no reason at all.

The fact of the matter is - once you go supplemental, it's like rowing uphill in a canoe against the current... as it seems that it takes MONTHS, or even a YEAR or LONGER to get pages back.. and that is if they ever come back.

I don't understand how the search engine expects to function properly if the sup-index continues to suck in large numbers of quality, authoritive sites based on unknown factors of their algorythm - making them virtually unfindable in Google.

It seems to me that as the sup-index continues to suck up pages that should be left alone, google's serps will become less and less relavant.

The supplimental index should not be used as a penalty box... when is enough - enough? When the sup-index is 10x larger than the regular index?

This may seem like a non-issue to many of you reading this, but it will hit you too someday.. perhaps the next update. There is no rhyme or reason to it, and when you get hit with "supplemental" status - all you can do is wait with your thumb in your rear.

Either the removal tool needs to work properly, or Google's ability to determine what is spam and scraped content needs to improve dramatically. Authoritive sites should not "disappear" entirely from the index.

The damn shame of it all is this:

The vast majority of the spam pages are made for AdSense sites that scrape content from other sites. The only reason these people scrape content, and make spammy sites is because Google is paying them for it via AdSense. By Google not removing these people from the AdSense program, they are pretty much sending out an open invitation for more spam.

If I were MSN or Y! or any engine for that matter - I would be livid at Google... they aren't just ruining their own index - the spam that AdSense generates is affecting all Search Engines in some way, shape, or form.

Take away the spammers'/scrapers AdSense accounts, and they won't have a reason to make spammy pages. Plain and simple.

The next question that comes to mind is: WHY oh WHY, are they not removing these scrapers/spammers from the AdSense program?

My personal opinion is that an absurd amount of revenue is generated for Google as the result of MFA sites that are traps for advertising dollars. While Google realizes that this is not good for the long term - but for the short term, it's a fantastic way to inflate the companies earnings to unrealistic amounts... driving up stock value... making stock owners happy...

The end result is a very massive stock value crash at some point. I think it will happen (sooner than later). I don't see it as a bad thing - perhaps Google will be willing to provide quality search results again if they don't have any shareholders left to impress.