Supplemental product pages - an idea for a "fix"

[digicam]

Hi, a lot of my product pages have gone supplemental since the summer.

I was thinking about removing all the product pages for a few weeks as the site does not do much business as an experiment and then readding them at a later date.

any opinions - would the pages be removed, would the new pages not be supplemental?

cheers

[g1smd]

If they go 404, then they will stay marked as Supplemental for a whole year afterwards.

You need to find out why they are being marked as supplemental in the first place.

[digicam]

They are Amazon product feeds, pulled from Amaazon - would duplication wih similiar sites cause this?

[g1smd]

Probably.

[digicam]

Is there A solution - more links possibly

[g1smd]

The solution will depend on the cause.

[sem4u]

You are going to need more unique content on your pages if many sites are using the same feed.

[tigger]

I've just had a a site start to show supp pages on every page expect the index. The site has unique content on every page as it I wrote it! every page has a different titles & descriptions and as the site is still only small (15 pages) nothing remotely spammy

Most of the pages are cross linked to each other (within nav) and even the anchor used on some pages is changed

All of the links coming in are one way from themed sites and the site has no links leaving it

The site has NO affiliate links and is squeaky clean no black hat SEO at all - so why in frigs name would it go supp?

My only thought at first was lack of links as its only got about 20 but they are all quality ones so I really don't see that as being an issue

Plus another site that I use as a linking tool that only has maybe 10 links pointing to it has not one supplemental page and the site is not built that much differently from the site that has gone completely supp

I'm right now really at a loss what makes a site go supp, people say its a lack of good content on the pages, well thats not the case with my site every page has 100% solid unique content

Anyone got any clues?

>You need to find out why they are being marked as supplemental in the first place.

how would you find this out?

[tigger]

one thought I've just checked the keyword count and on my descriptions, its around the 13 - could it be this? I'm re doing them all and doubling the word count to 25-30 again all unique

[Mohamed]

more than 90% of my pages gone to supplement. the content of my website is 100% unique and I rank no 1 in all search engines for the main keyword of the site.I don't really know what caused that, but I think google messes it self.

[sem4u]

It could be down to the lack or links tigger. I would suggest getting some more links and see what happens.

[jk3210]

tigger-

<<has unique content on every page>>

What is the average word count on a typical page?

[g1smd]

>> the site has no links leaving it <<

That may well be a factor. Your site is seen as a "PageRank Sink".

Your site is not in the "web core". Sites in the web core are sites that link to the web core and are linked to by the web core.

Having only incoming or outgoing links removes you from the web core, by definition. You also need to make sure that most of the sites that link to you and who you link to are also in the web core. That is, they also need to have both incoming and outgoing links with sites that are in the core.

[edited by: g1smd at 3:28 pm (utc) on Nov. 3, 2006]

[johnlim9988]

g1smd

Do you mean that the site should link out to other sites (these sites should be in webcore) and also other sites (in webcore) should link to this site then the site will not be supplimented?

Thanks.

[g1smd]

It might not fix the problem, but it can only help.

[venton]

I have been worrying about pages from my site going supplemental too.
I just found out the following which makes me feel better...
I am in the UK and use google.co.uk, selecting the 'pages from the uk' button.
When I search for engineers tool case, every single result for the first 10 pages of results says they are supplemental. That obviously includes all the big players. Does that mean something is broken, or that supplemental pages are now normal results?

[tigger]

jk3210

>What is the average word count on a typical page?

between 290-390 per page

>web core

WHAT! so not only are we now not supposed to do link exchanges to help our LP you're now saying so that the site doesn't look like a "PageRank Sink" you have to link to other sites - does this not seem ridiculous! after all, we all know non-recps are what counts so are we now having to do recp links as well so the site doesn't look like this "sink" you refer to?

venton

I'm seeing lots of supps showing in the serps as well on UK only searches - does this mean G is broke pass

[g1smd]

No. I am not talking about reciprocal linking at all.

What I am saying is that a "real" website will usually link out to (recommend) some other sites and be linked to (be recommended by) by some other sites.

[tigger]

I do have other sites linking into me (not owned by me)the idea because I'm not linking to other sites that my site is viewed as not "real" seems ridiculous.

Do you have anything to back this up? that if a site inst recommending other sites it will go supp because G thinks its a fake site!

[g1smd]

I wish I could find online the diagrams that Shari Thurow uses in her webdesign talks.

They make things very clear.

[tigger]

I'll have a dig around. I do hear what your saying that a site "could" look fake, it just seems crazy - I'll play G's little game and link to a few sites and see what happens

Thanks for your feed back

[vite_rts]

Webcore

Hi g1smd, is that a term used by google people recently or you use it to describe a type off website profile?

Since all these processes have to be automated, I suspect that google algo

1, cache site index page, plus a sitemap, then a fixed percentage of urls on entire site, plus identifying, contact pages, terms, policy, about us, financial info, common pages usually at top level of any good corp site, an very valuable to any user

2, assess all other pages , giving marks for meta tags, body section, title, header etc, identify template signatures

3, pages that are similar beyond a google defined variable point get the supplemental tag,

4, subsequent pages which match said criteria for this particular site go straight into supplemental index

Supplemental index being necessary cos of explosive growth of webpage numbers, a growth in quantity not matched with value

From googles point of view ,why index every description page for every product when you can just index the products catalogue list?

[steveb]

Do a site: search

When the pages display, if the descriptions show as too short (description then initial page text rather than just description), lengthen them a bit.

The main ways for supplementals to display are still low pagerank and low links, and dupe stuff like www versus non-www. Even if the pages are all original, if they display on multiple URLs, like non-www, you can have problems.

[tigger]

thanks steve

I've redone the descriptions as they were a little short so maybe that was one possible reason for the pages to go supp

My thought was at first low links coming in but then another site put up same time has less links but no supp problems - but does have a little more content on the pages so maybe thats the key, add more content

I've not got problems with dupe stuff www v non-www it shows the same results

so time to sit back and wait - after making changes how long should it be before the pages start to show if the supp has been dropped?

[g1smd]

>> I've not got problems with dupe stuff www v non-www it shows the same results <<

Can you explain what you mean by that?

[tigger]

if I search using site: it shows the same results with or without www is that not what it should be? I always under impression that was fine

[g1smd]

You mean that a site:www.domain.com and a site:domain.com search both give exactly the same results and that all URLs shown all include the www within them?

If yes, then that is fine.

The wording of your initial question was ambiguous.

[magicdan]

I'm noticing a difference in a couple of my sites that were almost completely buried supplemental. They are mostly no longer labeled supplemental so I guess something might be changing?

[Halfdeck]

My only thought at first was lack of links as its only got about 20 but they are all quality ones so I really don't see that as being an issue

What are the TBPR of your supplemental pages? Are any of them not TBPR 0?

[tigger]

TBPR whats that LOL I un-installed my TB long ago

using one of the foolbar checking tools the PR is zero with the index 4