If your site is in Google Purgatory, prepare to spend some time suffering.

Google maintains two separate databases of indexed web pages. The main index holds billions of pages, and this where most search results come from. The second is called the "Supplemental index," and searchers will never see those pages unless they put in long and specific keywords that are relevant only to some supplemental index page.

Therefore, don't expect any pages in the Supplemental index to receive any significant traffic from Google.

Go to Google and run the standard query to find out whether your site in indexed -- site:yourdomain.com . If you see the words "Supplemental Result" following the page size, that page is in the Supplemental results.

Here are logical reasons for your pages to be included in the Supplemental results:

1. Your page is duplicate content.

2. Your site doesn't have any real, original content.

3. The page is orphaned - that is, there're no links to it.

4. Your site's content has been "scraped" -- that is, you've just copied search engine results pages or converted RSS feeds to static HTML pages.

5. You've used spammy techniques to promote your site.

6. Your page seems to exist only to generate Adsense revenue. Use the page to sell something.

7. Your page software generates URLs with a "SessionID."

8. Your site's pages are dynamically generated -- and timed out when Googlebot was visiting your site.

9. Your dynamically generated page URLs contain "&ID" or "?".

10. Your dynamically generated URIs have parser errors that create poor HTML.

11. Your content management system delivers the same content on pages with different URLs.

Hdo you get out of Purgatory? Repent, suffer for your sins and correct them.

1. If your site is dynamically generated do whatever you can to eliminate timeouts, improve server performance and to eliminate parser errors. If possible, eliminate URIs with "?" and "&" in them.

2. Make your HTML code up to date and technically perfect. Upgrade to XHTML. Eliminate all deprecated elements such as the tag. Use Cascading Style Sheets instead of tables to lay out your pages. Check all your pages with the W3C validator (http://validator.w3.org/) or similar tool and correct all errors.

3. Eliminate duplicate and scraped content.

4. Add original content.

5. Place Adsense code below your content.

6. Make sure that all pages you want indexed have links to them.

7. Get listed in directories that allow "deep" links to pages below your home page. Here's one list: http://www.directorycritic.com/deep-links-directory-list.html .

8. Get listed in directories Google loves and trusts: Yahoo!, Open Directory Project, Uncover the Net, Site Sift, Best of the Web, Microsoft SBD, http://Business.com, JoeAnt, Skaffe, http://GoGuides.Org and LinkCentre.

9. Start a blog and link to a different inner page (with real and new content in your blog entry) every day.

10. Write and submit articles with links to different inner pages in the resource boxes.

11. Post useful information in discussion forums and, where appropriate and useful, post links to your inner pages.

12. Keep your Google Sitemap up to date.

13. If you trade links with other webmasters, do so only with non-spammy, relevant sites. And encourage them to link to your inner pages.

The easier you make it for Google to find, crawl, like and trust all pages in your site, the more likely you are to avoid or (in time) get out of the Supplemental results.