I’m not about to give you tips on how to take your pages out of Google’s Supplemental Results, but here’s an alternative you might want to consider doing, as it has become effective for me.

One of the sites I’m working on has got 98% of it’s subpages in Supplemental, the reasons being:

1. There’s very high percentage of similarity (around 80%) among its pages (template and content wise).
2. Pages lack unique and fresh content, and there’s not much internal activity going on (i.e. no updates) in a long while.
3. No external backlinks directing to its inner pages.

I had to choose between two action plans: (1) Work on taking the pages out of the Supplemental Results; or (2) Disregard those old URLs and create fresh ones. We all know that it’s not really impossible to battle on with the Supplemental Results trap. Actually, for a while, this Ituloy Angsulong site’s pages are in Supp, in which case, internal links and revised meta tags did the trick. I don’t think it works that easily for all sites, though, specially the ones which are not updated regularly. So, for experimental purposes, I chose #2.

By doing this, however, you should be ready to let go of all those backlinks collected in the past. (In my case, I had to lose some to gain more.) Here’s what I did:

1. I revised the URLs of the subpages (i.e. www.domain.com/subpage.html became www.domain.com/sub-page.html).
2. Since most of these URLs are still visible at Yahoo and MSN, I redirected the old URLs to the new ones by applying 301 Redirect.
3. Added new content to its subpages, and, having considered the percentage of template similarity, I proportioned the content’s wordcount to the template in such a way that the similarity would go down to at least 30%.
4. Applied the usual on-page optimization: improved the meta tags, utilized H1/H2/H3 tags, keyword-rich content, keyword-rich anchor texts (internal links), sitemap, etc.
5. Linkbuild.

In less than 2 weeks time, all the new pages were already crawled, and are now ranking for specific trophy keywords, plus, traffic was tripled too (ahh the greatest reward of em all).

Gah. Tonight’s the awardings night, and yet, I’m thinking about Supplemental Results. Such a loser.

You like?

I’m a sucker for neat layouts and graphics. While search engine bots do not really pay attention to them (aside from their HTML equivalents), I still believe there are site-hoppers (such as myself) who are attracted to sites that have something visual to offer.

Heavy and flashy graphics are not that attractive to search engine bots, however, when optimized for web usability (and SEO) purposes, “it helps in broadening the scope of your web site (which search engines like) as well as keep visitors on your site longer.” IMHO, it also keeps your site visitors coming back for more.

Perhaps that’s why both Pink-kupy and Blue-kupy have been selling like hot pancakes since they were launched. A lot of internet users are women, and are into cutesy stuff, and are not really aware that there’s such a thing as SEM going on. So they go for attractive themes. And flashy graphics. And pink-ish combinations.

Now if one can combine great webdesign and SEO, then you got yourself something that’s both human- and SE-friendly.

As for this site.. Nah, we just wana be cutesy, is all.

Read more: How Web Design Can Affect SE Rankings.

I’m learning alot from Lisa Campbell, one of the participants of Ambatch World SEO Championship 2006. Apparently, she’s also among those few women who braved a prestigious SEO contest. I don’t think she won, but along with her bravery, she left the www some relevant information and a good analysis of her ambatchdotcom contest bet, that most of us would probably find useful now.

Contests like ambatchdotcom and ituloy angsulong are often battled on with backlinks from high PR sites, or keyword stuffing, or content spamming, or scraping, etcetera. Sometimes, however, webmasters have become too focused on having their sites optimized to please the search engine gods, that they fail to remember what (and who) websites are for to begin with. Lisa Campbell said it well,

“In practicing the art of SEO, we must always keep in mind that ambatchdotcom and SEO contests aside, web sites exist for the human visitors, not the search engines. The balance must be to have a good quality web site that humans will want to visit, optimized for the search engines so that the people are able to find it.” ~ Lisa Campbell, Ambatchdotcom Seocontest Participant (Visit Her Site)

Maybe (here goes my maybe(s) again), at the end of this contest, which site emerges at the top of those search engines won’t be the one thing that would matter most. Maybe, it is those sites that have left relevant information (or entertainment, or whatever) that people will eventually find useful–maybe that’s what’s going to matter.

But that’s just me trying to be mushy. Haha. Backlinks are still very much welcome, and will be very much appreciated. So hey, send some our way? http://www.pinkseo.info/ituloy-angsulong.

PS. I asked this already, I’m asking it again. How many female contestants of this Ituloy Angsulong contest are there? Make yourself counted. Who knows, we could all be contributing to history. c”,)

Over the past three days, Pinkseo’s Ituloy Angsulong contest entry has reached the first page of Google SERPS. Uber-amazing. The highest we’ve achieved so far is 8th, but we’ve been shifting from 8th to 11th.

Not bad at all. But then, there’s still a long way to go, and I admit, each time I type “ituloy angsulong” at Google, I find myself holding my breath until I see that the site is still there. Considering what we’re up against, I won’t be surprised if one of these days, Google will just realize that something’s wrong with pinkseo being somewhere at the top of the ranks.

I wonder what a beginner like me (a girl, no less) should do to keep this amateur site there?

• Be all charming and ask people to give me more traffic love.
• Comment spam my way to high PR sites.
• Do personal favors in exchange for back links.
• Fresh content. Fresh content. Fresh content.

Gah. There goes my resolution again. I guess I’m gona have to stick with consistent ranting and blogging for the next three months. After all, that’s among the things girls do best, right?

Over the weekend, Pinkseo’s Ituloy Angsulong contest bet fell to page 4 of Google SERPs. Now, it made yet again another big jump and it’s back to page 2, this time at the 11th spot.

It’s still a mystery how this site manages to make it through. I’ve seen the backlinks and pageranks of them big sites we’re up against, and I have to say, I feel like David in a land of Goliaths. And yet, this Ituloy Angsulong site still ranks, surprisingly.

I rummage through what I’ve learned about Search Engine Optimization in my first year in the industry and try to apply them to this pink little thing:

• Fresh and relevant content; check.
• Quality and quantity back links; check.
• Keyword density; check.
• URLs, Titles, Metatags; check, check, check.
• Submit to directories; check.

Basic, basic things. And the list could go longer. Then again, maybe at the end of the game, we’ll all just end up wondering what happened. And just like what Mr. Abe said on the previous SEO Philippine contest, maybe there wasn’t a lesson to be learned, after all.

That be the case, then maybe this site does have a shot at this contest. Let’s wait and see. In a few months (and a couple of google dances here and there), we’ll know.