Can errors on supplemental pages affect your SEO

[Whitey]

If there are errors on a page listed as a supplemental listing [ which, if they appeared on a regular page would affect SEO ], could those results contribute to current SEO problems?

Specifically, we have supplemental pages showing a page link to "index.htm". This has been fixed on our "live" site with the links going to "/". The implication, of course is that G may think we have 2 sites and penalise us for duplicate content.

The supplemental page is redundant and has a redirect on it. But that doesn't stop it appearing in the Google SERP's. However, there may be supplemental pages out there where we do not have redirects on them.

Does anyone have view on this?

[Quadrille]

A strong view ;)

If a 'supplemental' page is obsolete, then remove it.

Obsolete pages are often duplicates, they often have dead links, and they may set up a loop which can severely curtail site spidering.

A 'clean' site is a happy one - and a tidy database is MUCH more Google-friendly than one filled with trash.

Let Xenu link sleuth be your friend ;)

[steveb]

The supplemental will stay there and hurt you indefinitely, until Google genuinely removes it and adjusts its ranking based on it not being there anymore. You've done what you can about it, now you just have to wait.