Posted by Julian
Posted on 05-05-2008 under SEO

How much content do you want me to write?

LOTS!

Google only indexed 15% of my site, why?

Because Google is like that.

Google’s Supplemental Index is the bane of my existence. Now that it’s out in the open, we may continue.

Google’s Supplemental Index is best thought of as the secondary listing. It’s the cloths that you don’t use very often but keep around incase you have to mow the lawn or go skiing or paint balling. When Google crawls a page, it looks at the content and decides not only how important that content is for specific terms, but also what sort of quality it is overall. Content that is not considered top rate is then stuck into the supplemental index “just in case” it is found useful later on.

The problem for a website owner with content in the Supplemental Index is that the content will not benefit from long tail searches. In fact even searches that match your page title exactly will likely not return your page. There are a few other issues, but those are the main relating to content.

Why did I write all that content if its rotting in the Supplemental Index?

You write all that content because thats the name of the game. If you wanted to have your entire site indexed by Google, 100%, then you would be best served with a 1 or 2 page website. There are measures to getting some supplemental pages into the index, but it is never guaranteed. This is why it is important to develop so much content.If you throw enough content at the Google wall, some of it will stick. Especially the real sticky content.

How do I get out of the Supplemental Index.

The basic keys to getting out of the Supplemental Index are to show Google that those pages matter. Get good inbound links to those pages. This is a bit time intensive, but if you notice a really important landing page slipping into the index this is a good method. Plus I should add that SEO Maintenance is time consuming, but worth it

It takes time to get into the main index.

In my last post about Google’s Content Index Time, I mentioned that it takes time to get into Google’s Main Index. It takes even more time to get from the Supplemental into the Main Index. This is why as SEOs we have to be able to roll with the punches.

Can The Supplemental Index be avoided?

There are some things you can do to stay out of the Supplemental. If you launch a Large Amount of content at once, you have a higher likely hood of having that new content put on the back burner. New website launches are a tough one here, cause you can’t launch a whole site piece by piece (Captain obvious, I know). Again, this is why it’s important to maintain your cool, take some time and watch the website do its thing.