Supplemental Index: Improving The Search Engine’s Performance

Earlier updates brought about dramatic changes because they were conducted monthly through the Google Dance, which bulked up the factors that needed to be addressed by the search engine. In July 2003, Fritz marked the end of this type of refresh and the team opted to do incremental updates daily. With this, they no longer need to take out a data center from the rotation to load an entirely new index to it.

What’s It For

With the development of an additional or supplemental index, Google’s primary objective may be to improve its performance even more. It allowed them to crawl through and index more documents without neglecting the quality and performance that end users receive.

The supplemental index is a secondary directory of pages that Google scours through in case it fails to find relevant matches within its primary web index. Unusual or obscure search terms may yield results from this index which have the tag “supplemental results” next to the URL.

What Were Its Effects

There were a lot of concerns over pages ending up in the supplemental index since it would mean that Google doesn’t consider the content relevant or significant enough for the primary index. As far as user experience is concerned, it also doesn’t add credibility to your page if it’s in the second index which can harm the overall site’s reputation.

To stay in the main index at the time, you would have needed:

• Valuable Content – High-quality content that provides useful insights to users has always been a significant factor for Google especially for relevance and user engagement.
• Deep Links – Deep links direct users to a specific page on your website with a piece of content for a particular topic. It goes at a more in-depth level than the home page.
• Higher PageRank – Google developed PageRank to measure the importance of web pages by counting how many links it has as well as the quality. The team believed that authority websites are highly likely to be cited as a source by other sites; thus, receiving more backlinks from them.

What It Means for You

Google scrapped the supplemental index concept, and it hasn’t been reintegrated since. In today’s SEO-driven digital world, though, you still need to ensure that you provide informative posts in a uniquely and compellingly way to attract your target audience and keep them coming back for more content from your website.

Here are some tips to help you write compelling content and increase conversions:

• Know Your Target Audience
  Conduct in-depth research on your target audience’s demographics and preferences. With the information you collect, you can entice them by creating content that incorporates their interests and motivates them to want to learn more about your brand and merchandise.
• Engage with Them Emotionally
  Marketing has always involved tugging at your target market’s heart. Consumers’ buying decisions are influenced by a mix of logical and emotional reasoning; leaning slightly toward the latter. Captivate your readers by including a funny anecdote or heartwarming stories in your content.
• Provide Content Variations
  While consistency with your content concerning the theme is ideal, you should find ways to shake up how you deliver your message. Informative posts are excellent for those who are looking for solutions to their problems, but it won’t be attractive to those who want to be entertained. Other forms of articles you can try to use are interviews, tutorials, lists, reviews, infographics, stories or testimonials, and opinion posts.
• Offer a Fresh Perspective
  For your content to truly stand out from your competitors, you have to give them new information that they haven’t read anywhere else. Look at the story or problem from different angles to find which one hasn’t been addressed by other sites yet. This way, they gain something valuable in your website instead of just rereading content that everybody already knows.
• Produce a Solid CTA
  A CTA or call to action generally tells your audience what you want them to do next after they’ve read your article. Your CTAs should be simple but still authoritative without sounding arrogant. It can be something as straightforward as “Buy it now” or spark their curiosity with “See how it works.”
• Write an Attention-Grabbing Headline
  The best headline is one that provides readers a general idea of what they can expect from the post while piquing their interest enough to get them to actually click on that link. One basic template that is popular today is the listicle format which goes like this: “6 Ways to Create Compelling Content.”