Google's Supplemental Index: "Why am I in Google Hell?"

Google's Matt Cutts responds to Andy Greenberg's Condemned To Google Hell article in Forbes. As always Matt zeroes in on some pretty blatant practices (substantial non-relevant reciprocal links for starters) that likely caused the site to end up in Google's supplemental index. The sad thing is that site owners are often following bad advice without seeking confirmation from multiple sources. In this case a diamond sales site claims losses of $250K in sales as result of the supplemental index issue. With those kinds of dollars at risk I would suggest a little more due diligence might be in order.

Having some of your pages in the supplemental index isn't the end of the world. When your site totally tanks though, you may need to seek some expert help to start digging out of it (and don't expect an overnight miracle). Yeah, it kinda stinks and it's bad for business, especially if you didn't do anything intentional to deserve it.

It's actually pretty scary to look at this in the context of just how much market share Google enjoys. If you apply that same percentage to your own business, and the impact that even inadvertent slip-ups can have on your sales, it's sobering indeed.

There are always webmasters pushing the envelope to try and "game" the Google algorithm. The important thing to realize is that they might not be in the same game as you. The more savvy of those folks have been doing this for years, with "churn and burn" business models that they know are a calculated risk with short term gains. When the bottom falls out they might have hundreds or even thousands of sites totally disappear from the Google index. But for them, that's just seen as a cost of doing business, and they start again with a new model.

If your business is focused on one site or one brand, you can't afford to risk the whole brand on tactics that are used by "churn and burn" marketers. At the very least, just use Google search to do a little homework. Find enough opinions on that tactic until you have a fair idea of the risks vs. the rewards.