Google Supplementals

Avoiding Google Supplemental results

What are Google Supplemental results?

 

Quite simple, Google has two indexes. The main index and a supplemental index. This second index is used whenever Google can't find enough results for a search from it's main index. So if you have a page in the supplemental index then it's chances of showing up in any searches are a lot less likely than pages that are in the main index.

 

How do I know if I have supplemental pages?

Unfortunately these days you can't tell! Google still has supplemental indexes, it just decided not to let people find out which index they are now listed in. So really all you can do is keep creating great content with a well organised internal link structure and good inbound links.

 

For historical reasons, I've left the description below for how you used to be able to find out which index you are in. Just in case Google ever decide to go back to showing us where they are indexing us.

This is how you used to be able to do it.

Go to Google and in the search bar enter

 

site:http://www.mydomain.com/

 

where www.mydomain.com is obviously your website.

 

You should see all the pages that Google has indexed for your website. Any pages that are supplemental will be shown in the results returned. The image below shows you an example of what to look for.

 

If you don't see any, you may still have some! Go to the last page of your search results and if you see this link repeat the search with the omitted results included then click on it and check your results again to see if you have any supplemental results.

 

How do I move my pages out of Supplemental and into the main Google index?

The fastest way to get your page into the main index is by getting other pages to link to it. You need to raise it's importance so that Google decides to index it properly.

 

Whilst you could try getting other websites to link to your supplemental pages there is a quicker way.

 

Simply add links from your own pages to the pages that are in the Supplemental results. It may take a couple of weeks for Google to reindex your pages, but you should start to see pages moving from supplemental and into the main index.

 

Where should I add links?

Obviously your pages should be written with your customer in mind, so just throwing random links around your site are unlikely to impress them.

 

You could add some discrete links into your footers. Also, if it makes sense to refer to another page on your website then you should link to it when you refer to it.

 

If you notice on the KKSmarts website I use a list of other linked pages on each page of my site. It's the list of links in a box on the right of the screen. Could you do something similar on your site?