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I feel very strongly that until we have a good grasp on why it exists, it will be very hard to beat.
I don't buy the explanation that it's intended to be a method of stopping spam. Why? One, there's too much collateral damage it is doing. Two, if you accept the 80/20 principle (20% of spammers are doing 80% of the spamming), and you realize that there are multiple ways already of beating the sandbox that all of those spammers are aware of, it doesn't make sense anymore.
So, why does the sandbox exist?
The most obvious effect of the sandbox is that it prevents new domains (not pages) from ranking for any relatively competitive term. So, start thinking like a search engine - what would be the benefit of this?
The sandbox is a PR flaw, nothing else - when PR is updated, loads of problems will get sorted - I think.
Explain this - how can you even speculate that PR is the cause?
looks like google does not calculate pr for sites/pages in the 'box' index. if so, this does not make sense.
>>The other sure shot way is placement in every relevant category of DMOz.
this has already been proved wrong by the previous posts.
>>the calculation of the query time importance score
pages in the 'box' index don't appear in normal queries so query time is not meaningful.
again, it's fun to postulate complicated theories but it's really a simple case of google indigestion - that a separate index is used to hide the fact that g has reached a capacity limit - and its is not due to some pea-brain reason like running out of disc space!
just ask yourself how your new sites are behaving compared to your supplemental pages.
the good news - it's been over a year of g multiple indices, so (i hope) they are close to a solution. every once in a while, i see supplementas mixed in with the normal serps. this must be an indication that they are testing.
The sandbox is a PR flaw, nothing else - when PR is updated, loads of problems will get sorted - I think.
Some of the the "new" sites where I am seeing this problem are seven months old. There have been two or three PR updates during this period but the problem is still apparent
- "sites/pages" are in the google index. yes, a separate index, just like supplemental pages.
- sandboxed pages show up in the google serps for non-competitive keywords (meaning low number of results) but won't show up for competitive terms. that's because g goes to the other indices (supplemental, sandbox) only if the number of results is low.
- sites/pages do not have any pr (or pr=0) since they are not included at all in the pr calculations. backlinks also will not show(?)
- only way a site gets out of the sandbox and into the main index is if room is created when old sites are dropped. we see a lot of "my site is gone from google" posts in this forum.
A big question is how google chooses which site leave the sandbox and enter the main index:
- the posts here indicate it is not age related
- definitely not pr since no pr is calculated
- quality of sites? spam metrics?
we can't seem to find a pattern and probably supports the theory that the selection process is a random process. this is probably the fairest way in the absence of a rational algorith.
Ok, my explanation ...
- New sites and new pages are still indexed and ranked within 1 week - That's a fact. Sometimes they're ranked very, very well if they are *not* money terms.
- If you want your site to rank well for the money terms you need a strong page rank - a strong 5 or above normally does it. Once you've achieved a high PR, all the old tricks work like they always did.
- Because page rank has not been updated for so long, it's created the illusion of a "sandbox". I think webmasters on these forums always without fail give G much much more credit than they are due - it's not some amazing sandbox algo tweak we're witnessing, just an intentionally delayed page rank update.
So do supplemental pages! That has nothing to do with PR.
>> If you want your site to rank well for the money terms you need a strong page rank - a strong 5 or above normally does it. Once you've achieved a high PR, all the old tricks work like they always did
Of course! Once you have PR, it means that you are out of the sandbox and included in the main index. Lack of PR is just a symptom that you are in the "sandbox" index!
No it doesn't.
So I don't think DMOZ is necessarily the magic pill you suggest
Its actually the G directory your site should appear in. The last time the sites that came out of the box, were the ones that were picked up by the G directory update aroud April. Sites came out in May.
And dont forget the category. A regional listing is not going to be very effective.
PMAC,
there is absolutely no way you can prove your statement. why? because there is no way for you to prove that your site is in the sandbox!
Site with loads of decent inbounds, TBPR of 6, scores allinanchor in the top 5. Nowhere to be seen for any query worth a damn. Proof enough for me.
