Supplemental club: Big Daddy coming - Part 1

W'sup with google?

[Crush]

Carrying on from here:

[webmasterworld.com...]

and here

[webmasterworld.com...]

A lot of members are seeing huge sites going supplemental. One of our main sites lots all rankings and 200,000 + pages disappeared and now we are left with 19k useless results. This could be a goof or it could be a new round of penalties. If you have had your site reduced to the 'sup index lets here about it and compare notes.

[Dayo_UK]

If you don't have any supplemental pages then it is good news. you don't have any useless pages on your site according to google.

Hmmmz - I dont know what is better no listing at all or a supplimental.

The best page in the world can go supplimental if it loses all its links - I have a feeling this current situation is about how Google passes links/pr throughout a site etc.

[plarkin]

Textex:

I am experiencing a homepage-only situation as well. All other 169,000 pages have gone supplemental.

All original content, no black-hat SEO.

[leeds1]

yep, I have HP only , plus 000's of supps

no cloaking, dups, dodgy linking and 5 yrs old

HP ranks #1 for 24m result term

[Dayo_UK]

textex is talking about homepage and no supps or anything though.

Lots of sites on the web - including some major forums have gone homepage only with supplimentals :(

[Wibfision]

I for one do NOT believe that this is a penalty. If it were a penalty, why would a load of old, outdated and non existent pages be listed as supplemental with an outdated cache?

Google are moving over to an entirely new infrastructure and this is just a little glitch with the crawling affecting some sites (eg mine) for reasons unknown.

I just wish that Googleguy would confirm this. Is anyone out there? Helloooo?

[textex]

What is worse...supplementals, or no listings?

[angiolo]

Just to add more info...

From the same connection I get different results using different computers...

Using Windows XP and Explore: everything is in order..
Using Mac and Fire Fox: I get supplemental results for few sites.

Another "strange" result.
Checking from home I get supplemental result for "competitor" sites that in the Office do not show supplemental results.

Googlebot is visiting intensively the sites showing sometimes supplemental results.

I do not think that sites showing supplemental results are going to be penalized.

As I explained, very few of the sites I monitor show supplemental results and there is no reason for those site to be penalized: nothing against the Google guidelines. NO black or grey hat: only "natural" site; good code (CSS or html ), safe and natural linking etc.

We will see......

[martin9325]

I am showing HP, all other pages have gone supplemenetal, drastic drop in traffic. Site design pretty old no CSS or anything, site been on-line since 1995, but we changed URL early in 1997, and it has never been optimised. We did find a canonical problem, which we resolved. Traffic dropped from about midnight UK time on Feb 21st.

I guess we just have to sit it out, like everyone else. It is reassuring to know we are not the only ones this has happened to, and all theories, however crackpot they might seem, are welcome because the more we all chip in the more likely it is someone will have that Eureka moment and the bits will fall into place ... I hope!

[Steph_R]

When did you find your canonical problem? Was it resolved right away?

We had the same problem a few months ago and fixed it...now this.

It might be helpful for everyone in this *club* if we find something "in common" with the sites that have supplementals. This might help to find a cause for this problem.

[jk3210]

To WebmasterWorld old-timers....

Does this bring back memories of a "Clear-out?" <G>

[textex]

You referring to black-monday and alta vista?

[watercrazed]

on my default google site is good, BD HP Good, rest is supplemental. Canonical problems identified in Nov, 301 redirects in place since then. Ranking drop in nov, came back to 80% of previous traffic levels. Traffic in 50% of normal now.

[jk3210]

<<black-monday and alta>>

Yeah, Alta's Black Monday, and wasn't there also one where they nailed all the 100% frames?

Seems I remember that Brett once took a direct hit, many moons ago.

Reading some of the posts here gave me the feeling that I've read the exact same words years before.

I shouldn't have even mentioned it. It probably gave some members the shakes all over again. <G>

[textex]

Black Monday was the beginning of a very fast end for Alta Vista.

[jixy]

this is interesting:
[google.com...]
results end at 720 pages (unique, not omitted)
the same with google but 877 pages:
[google.com...]

[steveb]

Absolute links have helped prevent situations like this, but they aren't the critivcal thing. 301ing www versus non-www is the key thing. Even if you have absolute links all it takes is one external site to link to you in the wrong way to get the bot running through the wrong loop (the non-www pages in most cases).

This part has been known here for two years, so this just seems more of the same, especially "more of the same" when it comes to Google being in utter disarray technically.

[textex]

From my digging, it seems as though Google is cleaning house.

I am seeing some similarities amongst some sites. I think it is too early to come to any conclusions.

However, this can be one big *BURP* that will fix itself.

Or we will wake up tomorrow with a completely new Google and search engine...and the skies will be falling.

Seems pretty silly to me for Google to try and take their engine/algo one step further w/o fixing the existing issues first.

Since Jagger, we are generating only about 25% of what we were last year this time. We hardly get any traffic from Google. So, there is really not much for us to lose. My only concern would be getting quality links. No one is going to want to exchange with a pages that are supplementals or, like our situation pages that are not indexed. Is there anyone else that only has their index pages listed, with interior pages not even indexed?

[edited by: textex at 8:20 pm (utc) on Mar. 3, 2006]

[BillyS]

Seems like someone just flushed the Google toilet bowl and everything’s heading for the sewer. Hopefully that bowl's going to refill and we don't have a clog on our hands.

Plungers ready (just in case)!

[textex]

I think we going to need more than a plunger! I think we need the SNAKE!

[Halfdeck]

I noticed one of my older sites went completely supplemental a few days ago. I can't even dig up the home page.

[textex]

I think this is the beginning of the end for the little guy on Google.

Kicking us while we are down!

$$ = Greed = Google

I was always worried the day would come...hopefully I am wrong!

[dmje]

Just noticed a new quirk on some of the DC's, particulary 216.239.37.104 and 216.239.37.99 you now,or at least I do, get the following error when trying to set preferences:

"Your cookies seem to be disabled.
Setting preferences will not work until you enable cookies in your browser."

My cookie settings have not changed and it does not happen on all DC's that I have checked so far.

This is just more proof to me that all that is going on is some kind of glitch with google's changes.

Just my 2 cents.

also noticed that a lot of my pages found using site: are now URL only, not sure what this means. Can anyone shed some light on this?

[edited by: dmje at 8:47 pm (utc) on Mar. 3, 2006]

[g1smd]

>> Lots of sites on the web - including some major forums have gone homepage only with supplementals :( <<

Many forums, including those using the popular vbulletin and PHPbb packages, can have up to 10 different URLs that can access the same content, and this will inflict a massive "duplicate content" penalty on themselves. If session IDs are also left on, then it is all over.

Additionally, there will be millions of indexed "newpost", "newthread", "sendPM", and so on, pages and screens that all show a "Error: you are not logged in" message: yet more junk that does not need to be indexed.

.

This was realised about a year ago at the ODP forum, and a comprehensive robots.txt file was set up to get all the "duplicates" and "fluff" delisted.

You may be interested to check these searches on both BigDaddy and on non-BD datacentres:

site:www.res ource-zone.com

site:www.res ource-zone.com inurl:showthread.php

site:www.res ource-zone.com inurl:forumdisplay.php

site:www.res ource-zone.com -inurl:showthread.php -inurl:forumdisplay.php

The BigDaddy results are close to what should be listed. The non-BD results are the old inflated listing with much of the robots.txt stuff seemingly ignored.

[arubicus]

"Seems like someone just flushed the Google toilet bowl and everything’s heading for the sewer."

Google engineer 1: "Check out what happens when we all flush all the toilets at once!" - Insert Butthead laugh - Uh huh huh huh.

Google engineer 2: - Insert Bevis laugh - mmm he he "Cool! Buthead!" mmm he he

Google engineer 1: "Dude that was cooool" - Butthead laugh - Uh huh huh huh.

Google engineer 2: - Bevis laugh - mmm he he "Do it again Buthead!" mmm he he

Google engineer 1: "Shut up Beatrice" - Butthead laugh - Uh huh huh huh.

Google engineer 2: - Bevis laugh - mmm he he "Do it again Buthead!" Whooooooosh! - mmm he he

Google engineer 1: Butthead laugh - Uh huh huh huh

Google engineer 2: Bevis laugh - mmm he he he he

Google engineer 1: Butthead laugh - Uh huh huh huh

Google engineer 2: - Bevis laugh - mmm he he he he

Several months later...

Google engineer 2: Bevis laugh - mmm he he "Do it again Buthead!" Whooooooosh! - mmm he he

Google engineer 1: Butthead laugh - Uh huh huh huh

Google engineer 2: - Bevis laugh - mmm he he he he

[edited by: arubicus at 8:57 pm (utc) on Mar. 3, 2006]

[randle]

What we are experiencing, in certain data centers such as; [64.233.161.104...] is a site is either affected or totally not affected. If it is affected, and you do a site command, you will see the home page correctly and then all the rest of the pages are supplemental. However those pages should be supplemental. A close inspection of them and each has a reason for this, either a misspelled url, no links to it, just old pages we forgot about.

The really odd thing is if you search for non supplemental pages by exact url, they can be found, but do not show in the site command. Also these non-supplemental pages that used to rank well, no longer do, but the home page still does. For us, it almost looks like Google is gathering up all the pages it just doesn’t want (and understandably so) and is ignoring the good pages.

A most confusing scenario. Why some sites and not others?

[MaxMaxMax]

you will see the home page correctly and then all the rest of the pages are supplemental. However those pages should be supplemental. A close inspection of them and each has a reason for this, either a misspelled url, no links to it, just old pages we forgot about.

I don't see this. My main site has the homepage normal and then a long list of supplementals if you use the site: command.

But these supplementals are not all old, unlinked or misspelled urls. They also include current urls, linked to from third-party websites (as well as internally) and with unique content.

[g1smd]

Are they (per page) the only URL that works for that content?

Are you sure that you don't have both non-www and www showing, or for dynamic sites a slightly different URL that can access the same content?

[ScottD]

I believe we have just turned a supplemental problem around.

This may sound obvious to advanced SEO people, but to others it may be pertinent.

I found our site was only showing up as supplemental results except a few pages, and noticed the "description" meta-tag was the same on each (php generated) page. The other meta-tags were unique to the content, as was the content of course. So we made sure each description meta-tag changed to reflect the unique content in the page, and now the normal (non-supplemental) pages are multiplying daily and quickly.

Lesson - check the code.

We had another site where the content was in German and the meta-tags were in English...just great! Surprise, surprise, no German clients last month.

[frakilk]

ScottD - you may be on to something there. I run two forums and on both I set the description META tag to the subject of the current page. Both forums have not been affected by this glitch/penalty.

[phish]

This is obviously a huge goof. Why do they do this stuff on live datacenters? These guys are killing us. I do have a cgi based shopping cart which generates the same title and description for each page of the cart. It also uses session id's, so I'm guessing that I'm generating about 50,000 duplicates in Google's eyes..lol. I have long wanted to ban Googlebot from my cgi-bin, but my question is if I all of a sudden ban them, will they think I'm up to something?

-phish