What happened to Google supplemental results

GOOGLE statement :

We've removed the label "Supplemental Result" from our search result pages. Supplemental Results once enabled users to find results for queries beyond our main index. Because they were "supplemental," however, these URLs were not crawled and updated as frequently as URLs in our main index.

Google's technology has improved over time, and now we're able to crawl and index sites with greater frequency. With our entire web index fresher and more up to date, the "Supplemental Results" label outlived its usefulness.

For SEO who have used the supplemental result label as a diagnostic aid, Google encourages the use of our Webmaster Tools and also our Analytics service. These free services can provide you with insight into those pages that users and Google may find less relevant.

Seo Updates

Latent Semantic Indexing Technology Google

Google Semantically Related Words & Latent Semantic Indexing Technology

Many people have been noticing a wide shuffle in search relevancy scores recently. Some of those well in the know attribute this to latent semantic indexing. Even if they are not using LSI, Google has likely been using other word relationship technologies for a while, but recently increased its weighting. How Does Latent Semantic Indexing Work?
Latent semantic indexing allows a search engine to determine what a page is about outside of specifically matching search query text.

A page about Apple computers will likely naturally have terms such as iMac or iPod on it.

Latent semantic indexing adds an important step to the document indexing process. In addition to recording which keywords a document contains, the method examines the document collection as a whole, to see which other documents contain some of those same words. LSI considers documents that have many words in common to be semantically close, and ones with few words in common to be semantically distant. This simple method correlates surprisingly well with how a human being, looking at content, might classify a document collection. Although the LSI algorithm doesn't understand anything about what the words mean, the patterns it notices can make it seem astonishingly intelligent. source

By placing additional weight on related words in content, or words in similar positions in other related documents, LSI has a net effect of lowering the value of pages which only match the specific term and do not back it up with related terms.

LSI vs Semantically Related Words:
After being roasted by a few IR students and scientists I realized that many SEOs (like me) blended the concepts of semantically related words with latent semantic indexing, and due to constraints of the web it is highly unlikely that large scale search engines are using LSI on their main search indexes.

Nonetheless, it is overtly obvious to anyone who studies search relevancy algorithms by watching the results and ranking pages that the following are true for Google:

• search engines such as Google do try to figure out phrase relationships when processing queries, improving the rankings of pages with related phrases even if those pages are not focused on the target term
• pages that are too focused on one phrase tend to rank worse than one would expect (sometimes even being filtered out for what some SEOs call being over-optimized)
• pages that are focused on a wider net of related keywords tend to have more stable rankings for the core keyword and rank for a wider net of keywords

Given the above, here are tips to help increase your page relevancy scores and make your rankings far more stable...

Mix Your Anchor Text!
Latent semantic indexing (or similar technologies) can also be used to look at the link profile of your website. If all your links are heavy in a few particular phrases and light on other similar phrases then your site may not rank as well.

Example Related Terms:
Many of my links to this site say "SEO Book" but I also used various other anchor text combinations to make the linkage data appear less manipulative.

Instead of using SEO in all the links some of them may use phrases like

Seo Updates
search engine optimization
search engine marketing
search engine placement
search engine positioning
search engine promotion
search engine ranking
etc.

Instead of using book in all the links some other good common words might be
ebook
manual
guide
tips
report
tutorial
etc.

How do I Know What Words are Related?
There are a variety of options to know what words are related to one another.

• Search Google for search results with related terms using a ~. For example, Google Search: ~seo will return pages with terms matching or related to seo and will highlight some of the related words in the search results.
• Use a lexical database
• Look at variations of keywords suggested by various keyword suggestion tools.
• write a page and use the Google AdSense sandbox to see what type of ads they would try to deliver to that page.
• Read the page copy and analyze the backlinks of high ranking pages.

Google Sandbox and Semantic Relationships:
The concept of "Google Sandbox" has become synonymous with "the damn thing won't rank" or whatever. The Sandbox idea is based upon sites with inadequate perceived trust taking longer to rank well.

Understanding the semantic relationships of words is just another piece of the relevancy algorithms, though many sites will significantly shift in rankings due to it. The Google sandbox theory typically has more to do with people getting the wrong kinds of links or not getting enough links than it does with semantic relationships. Some sites and pages are hurt though by being too focused on a particular keyword or phrase.

Where do I learn more about Latent Semantic Indexing?
A while ago I read Patterns in Unstructured Data and found it was wrote in a rather plain english easy to understand manner.

Brian Turner also listed a good number of research papers in this thread.

The Hidden or Not so Hidden Messages:

• If you are entirely dependant on any single network and a single site for the bulk of your income then you are taking a big risk. Most webmasters would be best off to have at least a couple of income streams to shield themselves from algorithm changes.
• If you are new to SEO you are best off optimizing your site for MSN and Yahoo! off the start and then hoping to later rank well in Google.
• Make sure you mix your anchor text to minimize your risk profile. Even if you are generally just using your site name as your anchor text eventually that too can hurt you.
• Search algorithms and SEO will continue to get more complicated. But that makes for many fun posts ;)

Page Rank Export Table Definitions

TBPR Export: Toolbar PageRank Export - export of Real PR to the Toolbar PR 11 unit scale (no longer called a PR update as Real PR is updated continously and the Toolbar PR change is just an export of that updated value).



GDPR Export: Google Directory Export - export of Real Pagerank to the Google Directory 8 unit scale (no longer called a PR update as Real PR is updated continously and the Google directory PR change is an export of that updated value).



BL Export: Backlink Export - export of a sample of the number of backlinks which is almost meaningless as it is only a sample number. This number can be seen with the link:www.domain.tld command (no longer called a BL update as backlinks are updated continously and the visible BL number change is an export of that updated value).



Algo Update: Algorithm Update - a major update in the Ranking algorithm that causes a large SERP change.



TB Program Version Change: Toolbar Program Version Change - a software version change to the Google toolbar that displays PR.



Days: Days between toolbar PR exports.

Seo Updates

Page Rank Export List History - PageRank - PR

This Page Rank Update/Export List History contains the dates that Google Toolbar Pagerank (PR) was exported. As of December 16th, there has not been a Toolbar PR export for 230 day(s). The longest time between toolbar PR exports recorded in the below Page Rank Export List was 122 days (Oct 19/2005 to Feb 18/2006).

*Note: Toolbar Pagerank update, Google Directory Pagerank update, and Backlink updates as of Sept 04/2005 will be referred to as Toolbar Pagerank Export, Google Directory Pagerank Export, and Backlink Export on this page. As of Dec 23/2006 the Blacklink and Toolbar Pagerank export have been combined on this page (see explaining updates link below).

This better reflects what is happening when there is a visible change in these three items. There is only an export not an update. The word update will be reserved for Algorithm Updates which will cause a change in the search engine rankings.

The Toolbar Pagerank, Google Directory Pagerank, and Backlink exports don't cause a change in search engine rankings. Any ranking changes during the export of the values of these three items is due to on going everflux changes - unless there is an algorithm update happening at the same time.

Read Matt Cutt's blog on What's An Update and his More info on PageRank, and the lastest Explaining Updates. Seo Updates