Answers
Feb 24, 2007 - 07:15 AM
It appears to me that if you get results from the supplemental index, it would say so next to the listing. I don't know if this is in fact so, since I have never seen this for myself.
What a strange thing - supplemental index...
What a strange thing - supplemental index...
Feb 24, 2007 - 12:11 PM
Well, it's their way of separating the good from the rest. I guess it's a way to sort out their "proven" trusted relevant sites and all the rubbish spam or non-important sites, instead of just throwing the last ones out completely.
But the problem is with my site that I have pages that come up if I search for site:mydomain.com but don't come up even if i search for terms that are very specific for the pages. And it's not all the pages that this is happening for, only some of them. So I really don't know if it's because they don't find the pages very relevant or they have been completely moved to the supplemental index and thus don't show up in the searches.
At least from what I've read, google no longer serves results from the supplemental index if they don't find enough relevant results in the main index. So I don't know what it is for anymore and I don't know how to be sure that a page ended there.
But the problem is with my site that I have pages that come up if I search for site:mydomain.com but don't come up even if i search for terms that are very specific for the pages. And it's not all the pages that this is happening for, only some of them. So I really don't know if it's because they don't find the pages very relevant or they have been completely moved to the supplemental index and thus don't show up in the searches.
At least from what I've read, google no longer serves results from the supplemental index if they don't find enough relevant results in the main index. So I don't know what it is for anymore and I don't know how to be sure that a page ended there.
Feb 24, 2007 - 10:52 PM
Oh, well, I haven't read the latest news about Google's supplemental index and obviously I can't answer your question.
But I do have some thoughts about the subject :-)
First, if your pages come up for site:yourdomain.com I would guess that they were still in the main index, otherwise why would they appear at all, if Google is not serving from the supplemental?
Is the search with "site:" different from other searches?
Second, dividing pages into two indexes clearly is not in the interest of the users nor webmasters. It might be a handy, good and even performance enhancing thing on the server-end, but honestly, for the users it's completely irrelevant from where the matches came - Florida or Kenya - as long as they are the most relevant for your search. Google has always tried to return the most relevant first and the less relevant last, so having a primary and a secondary index is not bringing anything new to the scene. Furthermore, dividing pages into "good" and "bad" must be arbitrary - what is the treshold? How many pages in each of them?
I don't understand why Google tells us about a supplemental index without explaining exactly how it works and why it is of importance to them.
Jakob
But I do have some thoughts about the subject :-)
First, if your pages come up for site:yourdomain.com I would guess that they were still in the main index, otherwise why would they appear at all, if Google is not serving from the supplemental?
Is the search with "site:" different from other searches?
Second, dividing pages into two indexes clearly is not in the interest of the users nor webmasters. It might be a handy, good and even performance enhancing thing on the server-end, but honestly, for the users it's completely irrelevant from where the matches came - Florida or Kenya - as long as they are the most relevant for your search. Google has always tried to return the most relevant first and the less relevant last, so having a primary and a secondary index is not bringing anything new to the scene. Furthermore, dividing pages into "good" and "bad" must be arbitrary - what is the treshold? How many pages in each of them?
I don't understand why Google tells us about a supplemental index without explaining exactly how it works and why it is of importance to them.
Jakob
Feb 25, 2007 - 03:50 AM
Well, I think this is not really the place to discuss whether the supplemental index is good or not.
You can read google's own view on that and other google issues on Matt Cutts blog here: www.mattcutts.com/blog/
The fact is it exists, and that I don't know how to be sure if that's where my pages have gone or they're just not deemed relevant in general.
You can read google's own view on that and other google issues on Matt Cutts blog here: www.mattcutts.com/blog/
The fact is it exists, and that I don't know how to be sure if that's where my pages have gone or they're just not deemed relevant in general.
Feb 25, 2007 - 06:26 AM
Not a very nice comment, theDude, but thanks for the link (though I couldn't find anything about Google's own wiev on the index).
Feb 28, 2007 - 06:36 AM
Update:
I just did a site:mydomain.com search and got 4 pages as a result.
The last one had the words "Supplemental Result" written on the last line between the size and the "Cached" link.
I just did a site:mydomain.com search and got 4 pages as a result.
The last one had the words "Supplemental Result" written on the last line between the size and the "Cached" link.
Feb 28, 2007 - 01:31 PM
sorry if you took my comment as an offense, I was only trying to guide the thread towards what my problem is. The discussion about the google index is fine, but it sort of distracts anybody that might know the answer to my problem.
i didn't see "supplemental result" on any of my pages, so maybe that means that they aren't in the supplemental index...
i didn't see "supplemental result" on any of my pages, so maybe that means that they aren't in the supplemental index...
Add New Comment