This isn't a new subject but I realised as I was explaining it to someone that it's not something we've covered in our Vertical Leap blog.

We've talked about searching Google without the supplemental index. But we haven't talked about what it is, what the problems are, what puts pages in it and how to get out of it.

So let me rectify that.

What is the Supplemental Index?

Google has 2 indexes - its main index and the secondary index. When it searches for results it looks in its main index first and displays results from its main index. If it can't find what it's looking for in its main index - then it looks in the supplemental index.

What's the problem with the Supplemental Index?

Well as you can probably guess - if you've got a got a competitive keyword, your page is never going to rank well if it's in the supplemental index. If a keyword has 63,000,000 competition and your page is in the supplemental index - then you're probably going to get displayed right at the end - along with all other pages in the supplemental index.

How can I tell if pages are in the Supplemental Index?

Well - one of the first blogs I did was about that - but to repeat again here - if you do the following search in Google - you'll see all the pages from your domain that are in the supplemental index.

site:www.domain.com *** -view

Why do pages end up in the Supplemental Index?

There are several possible causes for pages ending up in the supps. These are:

• Pages that are not well linked into the main structure of the site.
• Pages with same Title/Meta data as other pages.
• Pages with duplicate content to other pages.
• New pages
• Pages with no content

How to get pages out of the Supplemental Index?

Well - as you might guess. It's sort of the of the opposite of the points above:

• Make sure that each page has unique title and meta data.
• Make sure each page has unique content.
• Ensure pages are properly linked in, via sitemaps, navigation and body links.
• Give pages at least 300-400 words of content.
• Give new pages a bit of time!