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Are Your Blog Posts in the Google Supplemental Index?

If you are note sure if your blog posts are in the Google supplemental index, here’s a quick way to check. Go to www.Google.com and enter in site:www.yoursite.com *** –sjpked. Of course replace the your site.com with the correct URL.

One of the big reasons that blog posts routinely go to the supplemental index is that there are simply no links to them raising their page rank. Part of this is due to the way that blogs work with posts going onto a home page and then moving into the archive based on your settings.

One way to help keep your blog out of the supplemental index is to link to specific blog post pages from your website. If you point to a page specific URL for a post, not just the home page of your blog, and start to keep updated links to pertinent information, this may be one way to keep your posts live in the main Google index. Obviously another way is to write great content that others will want to back link on your blog, but if someone links to you and when, you can not control.

You may want to consider doing a special post archive on your website pointing to really hot property blog posts or ones that you particularly want to point out. What I do is to point to specific posts using Feed technology on my own website. I use a tool called FeedrollPro to allow syndication of my content and then I use FeedHoster to easily update my site feed online. This makes it super easy for me to show important headlines on my own personal website as well as to feed what I consider important content to others who are syndicating my content.

Staying out of the Google supplemental index is important so try some of these suggestions to see what may work for you too.

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Keep An Eye Open On BBB Claim Scams

I just got this in my email and it is enough to shake up any business owner. My email stated that a William Jackson had filed a complaint against me with the Better Business Bureau.

First I have never had a customer by this name and so I figured it was a scam or virus hoax, but the note sure looked legitimate, but I did not open the PDF attachment. I sent the BBB a note for clarification and then did a search on the Web.

This is what I found. First PDFs can now be exploited for virus attacks. Second the BBB has posted a notice that this is a scam and a new way to embed VB Script using their name. The link in our blog post title will take you to the Better Business Bureau site so you can read all about it and make sure that you are not a victim.

For me, I was a bit shaken up. I really pride myself on offering total customer satisfaction and work really hard to assure it, so to think that there was a customer who had a problem I did not know about threw me for a loop. Until I realized I had no customer by this name.

In fact one of the triggers to identify this may be a hoax was the messages headers were masked and the PDF file had a funny name.

Make sure you are not a victim, just delete the message if it comes from the fictitious address operations@bbb.org .

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Google Supplemental Index

Just what is that? Find out if your site is included in Google’s supplemental index by using this to do a Google search

site:www.yoursite.com *** –sjpked of course insert your correct domain name.

I have a few sites that we have designed and not provided content for (the client sent us content) that just have not placed well. I have really struggled to understand why those sites were not well placed as typically we have great success in moving a client in or up. Well now I have the answer and can help future clients. When a client simply snatches content from other sites and passes it off to you, the webmaster, as original content, they are cutting their own throat. The site will typically go right into the Google’s supplemental index as Google is too smart to simply let the duplicate content go right into the main index.

There are some times when content across the Web for a specific topic may be similar. Let’s say for example you are a merchandise broker and you and others are promoting a set of the same products to the world. This may happen in the franchise business or if you are an affiliate marketeer. The information may be similar. Be careful to take time to make your site’s content interesting and create unique features. Consider introducing a questions and answer section on the product or top tips or special reasons for consideration. Do not simply copy content and pass it off as your own. One it is wrong to do this and can cause a copyright issue and two Google will catch you and your new site will end up in the supplemental index. Sometimes we, the webmaster, simply do not know where you have gotten your content. If you have copied it, please let us know so we can rework it (for an extra fee unfortunately) and keep you out of the supplemental index.

Once you are in the supplemental index, it is a hard thing to move out. Some webmasters recommend abandoning the page URL completely and re-creating content under a new URL. This requires one a full revamping of content and typically a rework of the navigation, plus 301 redirects. Ka–ching. Why not help your webmaster and web designer by being up front initially and investing in unique content. The remediation to repair a problem can be expensive!

Google is really cracking down on duplicate content. So for me, I will have a more frank talk about this specific topic with all new clients and if you are a site owner, please don’t take the easy way out and snatch content and just change a few words and pass it off to your web designer as your own. Invest time in making your site unique by creating interesting content that is not a match for what is already out there.

We offer inexpensive content creation charges when we design your website. Invest in your placement on the Web with content that will win with Google, bring you new customers, and keep you out of the supplemental index!

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Swickis and Buzz Clouds

You’ve seen them, but may not know what they are called. You know the block of content on a site that is just keywords and some words are big and some are small. They are called Buzz Clouds or Swickis. I don’t have one on this blog, but you can visit Web-World Watch and see one on the right side bar near the bottom.

Whatever they are, they are interactive and allow your site visitors to actively participate in adding more keywords, letting you know the keywords they think are important and to search for more information on your site and the web on the keywords included in your buzz cloud.

If you want to start one, and by the way set up is FREE. Just click the post title to go to my favorite Swicki from Eurekster. It is super easy to set up and you can add the HTML that is generated in your blog template or add it to your new Blogger layout if you are using it in the add custom HTML widget.

Swicki even automatically lets you know when you’ve had click activity on your Swicki. I think that you will find what others think is interesting and adding one is just another way to create interactivity and make your site more interesting and of value to readers.