Within 48 hours of submitting this blog's URL to Google and completing all the other "Hallo search engines" stuff, I am pleased to announce that a full list of current Tech Pisstaker posts, all 4 of them, were indexed on Google. I am absolutely distraught however, that Google considers labels (or tags to you and me) to be duplicate content. Duplicate content is not something you expect to get called up on after 4 hard grafted posts, but, I did. Every useful tag, lovingly crafted by my unsteady hand on a blog platform distributed by Google (oh the irony), has been deemed duplicate content, and sent to the Supplemental index, or search engine purgatory, as we call it.

Supplemental Index

So what does that mean exactly, Supplemental Index? In the search engine world, it seems to be the equivalent of the second division, or the unfunny guy in the duo comedy act. The results will appear in search results, but way down, slapped into obscurity. And ironically, those results will be labeled Supplemental.

Excuse me while I take the piss for a second. Logically, in the search results, Supplemental Index is a sort of label, and Google doesn't like labels, so all entries labeled Supplemental Index should eventually end up relegated an infinite number of times to the darkest recesses of the internet? I jest. One layer of purgatory is enough to make your hard work almost irrelevant in the search results.

Tags, to love and cherish, or to reject like a cheating lover?

I thought labeling or tagging as I will call it, was the way to go these days, so I was in the Love camp. However, tags really annoy bots. Each tag is basically a URL that refers back to the content of posts you have written. Therefore, robots treat the tag (URL) as an address with content it has already indexed. So they don't rate the tags very highly at all.

I know, stupid that they cannot tell that we are trying to be nice to real users, leaving sign posts for humans to more easily find content. And especially stupid when you think that Technorati, the biggest index of blogs out there, (112 million of 'em) is built around tagging. But love them or loathe them, that is where bots are at, on Google at least.

So do we dump tags to please the search engines? There is a good discussion about tags and duplicate content on the Dummies Guide to Google Blogger. Enjoy a very in depth and techno savvy explanation of the issue, followed by the usual to and fro, ebb and flow of theories and hopes of contributors' comments.

Personally, I will keep using tags within posts, because even Google tell you to create content suitable for humans, not robots. Also, I have signed up Tech Pisstaker to Technorati, and will be adding tags there too. They need a voice you know.

Supplemental index tips and links

Btw, to see how much of this site is on the main index I typed site:techpisstaker.blogspot.com into the Google search box, you can do the same for your site. And to find out the extent of my presence in the Supplemental index, I typed this into the Google search box site:techpisstaker.blogspot.com *** -view

If for any reason your whole damn site gets relegated, punished or PR challenged, follow the advice on the SEO book to get yourself out of the supplemental index.

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