Find which of your pages are in Google's second-class index - and how to get them in the main index
Find out which of your pages are in Google's second-class index — and learn how to pull them into the main index.
- Now that Google has eliminated their supplemental index altogether and merged all previously supplemental pages into their main index, how can I determine which of my pages are probably still being viewed by Google as low value? I know that supplemental pages are still not being treated the same as regular pages, even if Google isn't calling them supplemental anymore.
Answer: You're absolutely correct. Even though Google has removed the supplemental label, supplemental pages still exist and are still given second-hand treatment by Google. If you're new to SEO and aren't sure what we mean when we refer to supplemental pages, be sure to read our report: How to Reprieve Banished WebPages From Google's Supplemental Index Graveyard
The best indicator now of whether a page is in the supplemental index is the page's Google cache date. There are two ways to easily see the Google cache date:
- Do a Google site: search over the domain, then click the cached link next to each page's listing.
- Download the Google Toolbar, which provides a PageRank feature tied to a drop-down menu that allows you to view the Google cache for any page you are currently visiting in your browser. It's an easy way to see in real-time both the current PageRank and the cache date in Google of each page you visit.
If the date is over 30 days old, it's likely not a crawling priority for Google and is in the (now-invisible) supplemental index. Typically, the reason a page is not being crawled is because it doesn't have enough PageRank. You'll need to build some links to that page to make it a crawling priority in order to pull it out of the supplemental index.
Pointing a few quality links at the pag...