Google Supplemental Results and osCommerce

[sosidge]

Forgive me if this has been covered before, I have done a search but the subject only seems to have been covered fleetingly.

 

I have had a lot of trouble with getting a good Google ranking over the years (haven't we all), the latest problem to beset me is being stuck in "Supplemental Hell". That is to say, almost every page on our site is in Google's supplemental index, which means it is a very low priority for showing in results.

 

We are using Google Sitemaps (which seems to work better now than at first), Froogle and Adwords.

 

Our results in MSN and Yahoo are very good.

 

I've got a few thoughts on why this may be happening, and I'm interested to know whether others have a similar problem, and could shed any light before I apply any changes.

 

1. Google is "broken" - Seems like a lot of people have had real problems with the index since the supposed "Big Daddy" update.

 

2. Chemo's SEO URL's contribution looks spammy to Google - is Google no longer fooled by dynamic url's being rewritten as .html? Does it think it is spammy and is now penalising it?

 

3. Low pagerank stops you getting proper results - our pagerank is poor - we operate in a fairly specialised marketplace, and we don't generate many backlinks in Google for some reason (Yahoo and MSN pick up a lot more). Does this stop Google from giving our product listings normal status?

 

4. Google doesn't like osCommerce - I always wonder whether there is something findamental about the way the osCommerce pages are writtin that doesn't look nice to Google's spiders.

 

Thanks.

[jpweber]

1. Google is "broken" - Seems like a lot of people have had real problems with the index since the supposed "Big Daddy" update.

I haven't heard of such a thing. But I do know that google is different than other search engines. Certain things are emphasized over other things, and all is explained in the google webmaster section.

 

2. Chemo's SEO URL's contribution looks spammy to Google - is Google no longer fooled by dynamic url's being rewritten as .html? Does it think it is spammy and is now penalising it?

Well, I certainly wouldn't go overboard with SEO URL's. Don't put in a link that says orange_blue_white_gray_tshirts_shirts_sweatshirts_sweaters_apparel_100_percent_c

otton_pleasepurchasenow.html, for instance. Use your URL keywords within reason; use only a couple, and specify them to that product. Don't spam out your own keywords just for the sake of having 'em in your URL's.

 

3. Low pagerank stops you getting proper results - our pagerank is poor - we operate in a fairly specialised marketplace, and we don't generate many backlinks in Google for some reason (Yahoo and MSN pick up a lot more). Does this stop Google from giving our product listings normal status?

I know Page Rank is separate from natural listings. Obviously, Page rank is privy to google only; nobody else uses it. What do you mean when you say "we don't generate many backlinks in google (but in the others, we do)? Obviously, google doesn't value your backlink if the site the backlink is on a website that has a low PR under 2. But websites with higher PR's and websites pertinent to your industry, I feel google would value. If you're in the the automobile aftermarket industry, for instance, it may be detrimental to put a weak backlink on "ellas_lingerie_directory.com"; you get the idea.

 

4. Google doesn't like osCommerce - I always wonder whether there is something findamental about the way the osCommerce pages are writtin that doesn't look nice to Google's spiders.

I would think that the googlebot knows OSC pretty well, so I'd say it can recognize an OSC site right away. But I wouldn't think it would punish you solely 'cause you're an OSC site. I think it all goes down to the basics -- titles, backlinks, and, oh, yeah, that one ol' thing called "content"!

 

Remember, *nobody* knows exactly how the googlebot really works except for google engineers themselves. But we all have very educated guesses. This should be an interesting discussion, nevertheless, so I'm going to keep watching.

[dumb_question]

I have about 600 pages in supplemental results. It is not because google doesnt like oscommerce but because we didnt take precautions. I changed the design of the site 2-3 times during last one year and moved to a different host without setting redirects. I have SEO urls version 2 installed and am struggling to figure out how to get the site out of supplemental results.

 

 

I would appreciate any help.