Does [site:example.com ***] really show only Supplementals?

[netchicken1]

According to other sites this hack shows Supplemental Results.

If so I have over 11000 which is totally crazy.

(Make sure you have a space between example.com and ***)

Also are there other hacks like this around. There were allusions to others but no definite examples.

[edited by: tedster at 4:25 pm (utc) on Sep. 14, 2006]
[edit reason] use example.com [/edit]

[bumpski]

It appears you are correct. I believe it does only show the supplementals. Excellent!

Supplementals can be outdated copies of pages with outdated URL paths, so there could be many, if you've changed your directory or navigational structure.

[tedster]

I first ran into this Google hack trying to research which urls they had indexed without the "www" for a domain. So I tried [site:example.com -www] and [site:example.com -inurl:www] -- and noticed that I was getting an all supplemental result (but unfortunately for me, it included urls with the "www").

I'd still like to find a way to get JUST the no-www urls. However, the way this buggy result actually works is probably more widely useful.

[taps]

** seems to show the same result - saving one keystroke ;-)

[Bewenched]

That's awesome! I've been trying to figure that out for months. Most of mine have very old cache dates so once google makes it around I feel pretty good that they will pull out of it. At least that's the wish I'm putting on the google altar ;)

[dmje]

One thing I did notice about using this command, it puts the page title and snippet in bold, well at least on my machine it does.

It does appear to return a fairly accurate count of supp pages.

[giuliorapetti]

The snippet in bold I think is a way to give quick guidance on where the dup content is.

At least in our cases. sometimes is the title (and it was guessed right as the title was duplicated) and sometimes the descriptions, which is not taken from meta tags but from portions of the page. Stiil: outlining (hem! bolding) where the problem is.

[youfoundjake]

I tried this.
the result returned more pages then what the regular site command shows, wierd.

[steveb]

It does seem to show more than the -www ways. It also changes every few times I refresh the page now.

[daveVk]

site:example.com ** keyword

In this case keyword is bolded as expected but also some words around it are bolded, duplicate snippets maybe?

ps

keyword **

Exibites similar behavour

[edited by: daveVk at 2:52 am (utc) on Sep. 15, 2006]

[Kirby]

For me it shows pages as supplemental that are no longer supplemental (ranking page 1).

[daveVk]

widget **
** widget
red ** widget

Gives phrases starting with widget, ending with widget, starting with red and ending with widget. Number of stars not important?. Must has some notion of a phrase.

[McMohan]

Right Kirby. A new page that I created on 28th last month is shown as a supplemental with Aug-30 as crawl date. That page ranks top-10 for a 2 word phrase and isn't supplemental in SERPs. I guess this hack is best taken as a time pass.

[steveb]

That seems to be a good use for it. It isn't that a page "isn't supplemental" but rather that there is a hidden supplemental for regularly crawled page. This is never good, although it may not harm you noticeably either. You should examine such pages for possible issues, like duplicate descriptions, etc.

[McMohan]

You should examine such pages for possible issues, like duplicate descriptions, etc

Steve, can a page which is a hidden supplemental for some issues, rank for any competitive keyword and not show as a supplemental on regular SERPs?

[steveb]

Sure.

[netchicken1]

This is not good news ... some of the sups are from Sept 4, it looks like an entire major section of my site has gone supplimental

[seochristine]

Didn't actually get the meaning of results this query is producing
site:example.com ** keyword
Listing pages from the site having the keyword in the page content or in the url.
I get different result sets for the queries :
* keyword
** keyword
and keyword ** and so on.
These wild card characters along with the search keyword produce results with a no. of other words being higlighted on the result pages.

[soapystar]

site:www.domain.com *** x results

click page 2 or include omitted reults and the number of results switch again

[daveVk]

** Widget seems to mean phrase ending with widget.
Widget ** phrase starting with widget.
Other combinations like red ** widget and ** widget ** do as expected. What I find interesting is what constitutes a phrase boundary, seems to be some symantic analysis or possibly repeated sequences? Yes there is some difference between * and **, * without keyword returns no results. Used without site: non sup results are returned.

[Bewenched]

Just playing with possible operators I did this

site:www.mydomain.com +++

results came up some supp .. some not. Any ideas of what the plus operator pulls

I also noticed with the *** the results come back bolded. Anyone else seeing that?

[piconsulting]

Yup, and if you search site:mydomain.com "*** it bolds the description too :)

[idolw]

[google.com...]

show 10,500,000 results ;-)

[SAHover]

For me, it's showing almost my entire site with a cache date of May 13.

Most of my pages have been updated since then but all retain the same URLs.

Ridiculous that they would have these.

[lmo4103]

How can I see the rest of them... say result 1,001 to 1,050?

[lmo4103]

By the way we did 301 redirect non-www to www and...
searching inurl:www.example.com shows "1-91 of about 94 results" and only the last 3 are supplemental results (94 - 91 = 3 ). All the rest (thousands) are probably supplementals but I don't know how to confirm this.

[McMohan]

Has anyone seen any site that doesn't show sups with that hack?

[tedster]

I can't find such a thing. There are Supplemental versions of most urls thatare also showing in the main search results, but they all have earlier cache dates.

This supports what many have been saying all along -- there is no inherent reason to be concerned about a Supplemental Result, per se. But studying Supplemental results can be a very good tool to highlight various problems that DO exist. Sometimes they just pop out at you.

[lmo4103]

There may be no inherent reason to be concerned about supplemental results per se, but there is a cause for concern when a particular search once returned results from example.com and no longer does ... unless you add additional words (that no real searcher would add) that flips the "return them supplemental results" switch.

[steveb]

"there is no inherent reason to be concerned about a Supplemental Result, per se."

No it means the exact opposite. Having these hidden supplementals should concern everyone a lot. In most cases such a listing is a sign of a problem or potential problem. Even if some problem has not asserted itself yetm like if you have not been hurt by duplicate descriptions, you should take care to fix problems.

A supplemental is always a problem, usually a major problem. Even if you are ranked #1 for some term and there is a hidden supplemental, you should be very concerned. It is never, ever a good thing.