When does a site become a Supplemental Result?

My own results confuse me.

[Trax]

Google lists a few of my pages as "Supplemental Results" that I did not expect to be listed as such.

My own definition of a Supplemental Result is not fitting for my own case which is why I would appreciate your comments towards this.

Thanks
Trax

[DerekH]

I've seen several scenarios, some of which I don't understand.

One that I've seen that I do understand is when I was moving files about and I marked the (old copies of the) HTMLs file with a Meta robots NOINDEX, FOLLOW
At this point, the files became Supplemental in Google.

So that's one reason to put on your list!
DerekH

[rich42]

I noticed about 100 'supplemental' results out of the 450 pages or so for more site.

In my case they're all duplicates of other pages in the index - just accessed via a different path - ie [mydomain.com...] instead of [mydomain.com...]

May be worth verifying that the supplementals aren't duplicates of other pages you have in the index...

[Trax]

as far as I've checked I can deny both scenarios in my case....
Dup content could (as far as I know) be another reason but I can not validate this in my case either...

What else could the reason be? any comments appreciated :)

[rfgdxm1]

One of the most common scenarios I've seen for a page to be a Supplemental Result is that it is an orphan page. Note that a page need not be truly an orphan; only that Google thinks it is. If Google can't spider pages linking to that page, this would make it an orphan to Google.

[walkman]

I've also seen supplementals on sites that were no longer spidered frequently /slow death kind of a thing.

[MrRoy]

I agree with Robert. I think what he said is absolutely right.

[mars9820]

restructuring your site without making 301/302. After the next deep crawl the suplemental results are gone and replaced by the new pages.

Another thing can be that your site was down when googlebot tried to visit

Googlebot in both above scenario will be served a 404 error.

[g1smd]

A page may not be a Supplemental Result for all keyword searches!

I have some pages where an email address has been removed. The pages are still spidered, indexed and cached. The pages appear as normal for many searches, but when searching for that email address, the same page does appear in the results, and is then marked as a supplemental result. The snippet shows the old email address, but the real page does not (as it was removed many months ago). The cache does NOT show it either!

[DerekH]

I agree with Robert. I think what he said is absolutely right.

Pardon me for being dim, but who is Robert?
I don't see a post by Robert
DerekH

[Powdork]

I believe he was referring to Rfgdxm1.
I have a site I took offline in August. It still shows up as a supplemental result and the pages still exist in the cache. has Google taken over the work of archive.org?

[steveb]

It may have been going on longer, but at least for four days or so, some Supplemental listings show a recent cache (like a week ago), rather than one from March or whenever. But... the keyword search that brings this page up as a Supplemental listing is not to be found in the displayed cache.

With such bollocksed up data storage it is a wonder they can find anything to rank accurately.

[zeus]

Many of us who also have troubles with dublicated content because Google cant tell the difference between a site redirecting to a original site or hijacker sites, has pages listed as supplemental results.

[g1smd]

>> the keyword search that brings this page up as a Supplemental listing is not to be found in the displayed cache <<

I have been reporting this "feature" for the last year now. It is oft overlooked.