[longisland6]

on the index page of my site i have (in the div that holds my flash) a list of links to every section of my site, even dynamically generated pages. i also created a google sitemap (an xml formatted list of links to all my pages) in my root.

i've noticed in the last few weeks (since i've put up the sitemap.xml file) that quite a few of my pages are being listed in a google search as "supplemental" results.

could this be because i have both the links to my pages in my index page and then these same links in my sitemap.xml file? thank you.

[steveb]

Sounds logical to me. If your Google sitemap is not absolutely essential for whatever reason, then get rid of it. If you haven't been actually benefiting somehow from the data, there is little point in generating it in the first place.

[longisland6]

do you think the sitemap would be a better choice than the index page links since i can actually "push" my links instead of waiting for a spider run?

[steveb]

Which are used more? The index page links, I guess. That's what most visitors see and use. Maybe one in fifty checks out the sitemap. The spider knows!

[longisland6]

the user sees neither.. the links on the index page are in my flash div so most people only see the flash, and the sitemap is an xml file that only the google spider sees.

[transparent_opacity]

It doesn't matter that your pages are in 'supplemental hell' - don't worry about it, a supplemental page can still rank well for a phrase. What matters is that Google considers your page to be significantly similar to other pages on the subject and less important.

• Do your pages contain a significant amounts of similar content (i.e. the HTML for the page template, does that make up say 90% of your HTML)?
• Are the page <title> tags unique to each page (where possible)?
• Are your Meta Description tags unique to each page (where possible)?

I doubt this is related to links on your index page or the presence of a sitemap.

Without sounding disrespectful, I'm not sure I'd take Steveb's advice of ditching the sitemap too seriously. Sitemaps don't hurt and removing it will not fix your problem.

Do some research on supplemental results. There are plenty people who will tell you it's the end of the world when really it's not. I think Rand over at SEOMoz did a 'Friday Whiteboard' video blog not so long back with a good explanation.

[vannova]

it does not matter you have both the links to my pages in my index page and then these same links in my sitemap.xml file

google takes time crawl complete site.

try "site:yourwebsite" command

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