Supplemental results indicator gone from search results

[StickyNote]

Looks like the 'supplemental results' indicator is gone from my Google 'site:' query.

This is on the default datacenter. I still see it on some other datacenters

[bwnbwn]

Tonearm it seems to be close but might be incorrect as well as some sites I checked within the last month or so have gone supplemental really bad.
Example I checked one a month or so ago had 1200 page non supplemental this method now shows 100 pages so 1100 have gone supplemental within the last month.

I Checked personal site right before this and had right at 160 now 130 so this does show supplemental I am not so sure it is updated.

I checked another one I oversee right before this hit had over a 1000 not supplemental this method shows 500. I don't think this site lost 500 pages in a week as traffic is steady.

I wonder why the big differences now?

[aleksl]

Since 2006, we've completely overhauled the system that crawls and indexes supplemental results....We're also working towards showing more Supplemental Results by ensuring that every query is able to search the supplemental index, and expect to roll this out over the course of the summer.

Of course, you will continue to benefit from Google's supplemental index being deeper and fresher.

So as people already pointed out, if your page falls into Supplemental Results, you still have a problem (it will NOT compete in SERPs), yet people will still be able to find it. Right, on page 57.

Yet, you will have no way of knowing it.

Thanks, Google.

It's about time someone started a company and make a fortune on making tools that disappear from Google.

[Errioxa]

will not be normal that every time are more additional results? Because I suppose that the index of the data base main will have a limit, that is, that the pages indexed in that servant already will be a constant.

If every day there are more pages in Internet by noses the additional results will have more and more to be, no?

[bwnbwn]

Ok this is the pits I just looked at a site with the www.example.com/* search just to see, 2600 pages showing ok so I assume they aren't supplemental everyone of the pages has the same title decription and ugly url's
www.example.com/?content=52&product_id=14195

So here you have a site with 2600 ugly url's with the exact title and description for every page on the site and it's not supplemental

Got 1 big link in Google showing 1900 in yahoo.

This makes no sense at all plus it is showing up for some very tough single keywords.

I really believe the google algo is out and the human ranking is why this site is were it is as there is nothing in the SEO, links, information, no forum nothing

The site should be supplemental to the hilt but isn't so why do we find sites that just don't make sense in the serps...Got to be human intervention as the only possible answer.

[tedster]

nothing in the SEO, links, information, no forum nothing

Your competitive analysis could be missing some powerful 301 redirects that are influencing those search terms. Those 301s can be very hard or even impossible to see, except for their obvious effects in the SERPs.

[bwnbwn]

tedster
Very very intresting comment I will have to look into

But I find it very unlikely on this site since he doen't 301 his non www to his www I find it hard to believe he is using them anywere else.

[g1smd]

The Supplemental Tag was an easy way to see many types of problem with URL canonicalisation and to then help monitor the progress in fixing those problems.

Those issues will still exist, and will still cause grief for sites, but may now be much harder to spot by those who are unsure what they are looking for.

[maximillianos]

Matt Cutts said they are planning on integrating the supplemental results more and more over the summer... blurring the line between the two.

I, as a webmaster, don't want to have to worry about supplemental versus non-supplemental. I know, knowledge is power, but it is also stress... and if there is one thing I have learned over the years... over-analysis using any tool can be the death of you.

I for one am glad it is going away... since it will free up my time for more productive things... =)

[Lorel]

How to spot pages that are PROBABLY in the now hidden supplemental index:

Pages with low PR

Pages listed two different ways (both relative and full links, session IDs, etc.)

PDF files (because of no PR)

Deleting pages without setting them up as "gone" in htacess.

Someone may have copied the page.

Using distributor copy for your products

Too little data on the page compared to the header/footer, menu and other duplicated text showing on other pages.

[CainIV]

Lorel, that synopsis of how to find supplementals is simply not accurate enough.

Websites that are pagerank 8 at the home page and are authority can have thousands of those pages you describe that are not in the supplemental index, depending on internal pagerank and link heirarchy.

It's next to impossible to 'guesstimate' which pages could be supplemental or not on most quality websites.

Unfortunately to me this takes more control away from site owners and webmasters.

[Shibby]

Just before the tags disappeared I had 79 pages in the main index, the rest supplemental. Now, site:www.example.com/* returns exactly 79 matches, so surely this must be correct?

I'm not 100% positive, but...
site:www.example.com -site:www.example.com/*
...seems to return only pages that aren't in the main index, i.e. suupplemental

[kamikaze Optimizer]

Shibby:

I can confirm that both of those work for me also with 472 in the main index and 11,700 in the supplemental; the same as it was before.

Looks like we have our tool back, for the time being anyhow.

[Kiter]

Yep, I knew exactly which pages I had in supplemental 3 days ago, and I have exactly the same pages not showing when I use www.example.com/* - so it's definitely completely representative of the old supplemental for me.

[tedster]

I agree that the old query hacks still are returning the same list of urls, but without showing the "Supplemental Results" tag. It's those "future improvements" mentioned on the official blog that have me worried. Here's hoping we get some help soon inside Google Webmaster Tools.

[youfoundjake]

For whatever its worth, while the supplemental index was being utilized, my site ranked 650 out of 25 million results. Now that there is no supplemental index per say, my site has moved up to 237 out of 25 million in the course of a week. Nothing else has changed, am I correct in thinking that the two could be related?

Jake

[tedster]

I don't think so, Jake. The Supplemental Index is still being utilized - it's just that the label is no longer shown in the SERPs.

[Jakpot]

You may be right Jake. I'm beginning to get traffic
on pages that were previously supplemental and had
zero activity.

[tedster]

I think we may now be seeing the "future improvements" that the blog entry mentioned. I'm convinced that the Supplemental Index did not go away - but it certainly will continue to evolve.

[youfoundjake]

I mentioned the change in position particularly because my positions in yahoo and msn seem to remain pretty consistent. With regards to my pages that were in the supplemental index, the majority of them are pages that appear as number 1 for those particular search terms, which kind of raises a question for me due to a lack of knowledge on this...
If pages in the Supplemental index in and of themselves rank very well, say the top 10 results, can that influence the pages that may not rank in the top 10?
The lower profile pages, (read-non holy grail search phrase) are still unique enough in content to be consistently #1 out of 1 or 2 million. Granted, those pages were at the top while being flagged supplemental, but maybe they didn't pass any "juice" to the pages in the main index because they were in the supplemental index. Makes sense? Or am I just pontificating?

Jake

[Jakpot]

Google is an evolution

[tedster]

Bill Slawski has a new article [seobythesea.com] that discusses a Google patent, applied for in 2003 and just granted this week. System and method for selectively searching partitions of a database [patft.uspto.gov] seems to be describing the "Supplemental Index" without using the actual words. The patent gets into some interesting areas, including how PageRank could have a role in determing the partitions.

It's the incomplete indexing of content for Supplemental Results urls in the past that troubles me. When even a PR4 page can be supplemental, lots of useful results could be obscured. If it's true that the line between the Supplemental Index and the main index is getting fuzzier and fuzzier -- that the supplemental "partition" of Google's index is evolving more and more -- then this removal of the Supplemental Result tag makes some sense to me.

[Tonearm]

Sounds like the Supplemental tag's disappearance and the granting of that patent may have gone hand in hand.

[lmo4103]

The evolution of supplemental results has led to them being fresher and has led to the removal of the green supplemental results labels.

Notwithstanding, supplemental results are bad.

Supplemental results are analogous to racial segregation.

No "Supplemental Result" is permitted to appear with "Main Index" SERPS.

However, "Main Index Results" are allowed appear with "Supplemental Results" SERPS as desired.

If a search yeilds more than some cutoff (500 or so?) number of results, it is probably "Main Index" serps, and THOSE "Supplemental Results" are not allowed here.

I have read hundreds ... or thousands of explanations regarding supplemental results, but the above is what I have observed.