Google is cleaning up supplemental results

[zeus]

I can see many sites have lost there supplemental results in site searches big sites and small site, maybe we are seeing some cleaning done or they have bought a few more servers so they finaly can handle all the sites, without making wierd cutback in search results.

[g1smd]

Many site:domain.com searches were showing Supplemental Results that should not have been showing up in that particular search.

Matt cuts said, only a few days ago, that those would be fixed in various software updates in the coming days and weeks.

There are also the normal cleanup operations where old pages are actually removed from the Supplemental index, rather than still being there in the database bur just removed from that particular visible search reesult.

[vite_rts]

Hi Guys, in trying to "fix" my supplemental pages, I've edited the meta descripts, title tags, and checked the contents in the body of the html to try to ensure that the pages are distinct,

Now the pages are fully indexed in msn, yahoo, but

After i re submitted the sitemap, google promptly dropped the most recent caches and reverted to caches 1 or two months older,

This has happened quite a few times now, what then happens the caches very slowly catch up, hence unless there are no updates by me, the cached pages are permanently 2/3 months outta date

Does this sound familiar to anyone?

[zeus]

it does switch a lot as now I see all the supplemental again, i realy think this is a little cleaning be cause the supp issue has just taken to much of a attension

[zeus]

hmm its said to see tat the non supplemental results is gone again, I have not seen them for 2 days now, it realy looked clean.

[notdrowning]

I have a related question. I posted a little while ago about a crazy ex-colleague who posted false information about me in lots of forums, and the posts were cached and some were placed in the supplemental index. I have noticed that some have gone as the pages have been re-cached (thank goodness), but others haven't. Some of the threads still exist - they can't be deleted - though the fake content about me has been removed by mods. The old versions still exist in some of the caches though. Is it just a matter of waiting a year or so more the supplemental results to disappear? Is there anything I can do to make the pages disappear faster?

[g1smd]

No, it can take a year.

[zeus]

the good old days the supplemental database was updated every 3 month like the image search

[g1smd]

Oh, it certainly gets updated every few months, but it takes a year for 301 or 404 URLs to be dropped.

[notdrowning]

Thanks for your help. This whole thing has been a total nightmare for me. The idea that the supplemental results will gradually disappear - does this hold true for pages in which content has changed (i.e., offensive posts about me have been removed from the thread, but the thread itself still exists) but not deleted entirely? In other words, will the supplemental result reflect the new thread with posts deleted in a year's time? Thanks again.

[g1smd]

If the thread exists now, then you'll find the current version of the thread is in the Normal index, and content that no longer exists in the real thread is stored in the Supplemental index. The removed content only shows up if you use specific keyword searches to find it, and that content will be dropped after one year.

[zeus]

looks like it was just hopefull thinking, but it realy looked good that one day.

[Atomic]

Lifting the carpet up and shoving the supplementals underneath hardly constitutes a "cleanup"

[notdrowning]

An update on the psycho colleague posts in vBulletin forums - only ONE post has been removed from Google entirely since I requested the forum mods to remove it. I can use the old search term and nothing comes up. That is a good thing.

However, when I search for my name, all of the posts still come up because the old version of the page has been cached, even though the page in the Normal index is OK (posts have been removed from the threads). These are all in the Supplemental Index too. In short, if someone searches for my name and doesn't click on the cached version of the page, there isn't a problem. If they do, they can see all of the crazy stuff this guy posted.

Is this just a matter of waiting for the pages to be recrawled and the caches to be updated and the Supplemental results to be removed? I have noticed that most of the pages were cached around March/April this year. Do I just have to wait for them to be crawled again? How long does this usually take? Thanks so much.

[rden17]

last Friday I noticed that all my sups were gone and fully indexed. I saw a 3-fold increase in my traffic, numbers I had not seen before. My sited has done great. Now, yesterday 10-25, they are all gone again and my traffic has dried up again. Does the fact that they had it all working right at lease for a few days, indicate that this might be in a temp flux and should again return once google decides what they are doing?

My traffic and earnings shot up through the roof over the last 4 days and really gets you pumped up, that all the hard work you put in is starting to pay off, and then POOF - they pull it all away again.

Very frustrating

[zeus]

Its incredible that we dont get any real reply from google about this stuff, I think everytime there is real troubles, they dont reply, like the 302bug hijacking, but the supplemental and omitted results is a sign they dont have any space on there servers, also I dont see that freash results anymore, like on live.com

[gibbergibber]

If Google are short of space, surely they'd be clearing out the non-functioning supplemental results as soon as possible instead of storing them for a year?