Forum Moderators: open
I have been posting in favour of the Sandbox's existence and I have 2 sites firmly stuck in the sand!
However...
2 weeks ago I registered a brand new domain and started to build a new site. I knew it would be at least 6 months before anything happened but..
This morning it entered the index for the first time - straight on page one for a one word search (a town, granted only 194,000 matches) but none the less the last 2 sites still cannot achieve similar results after 6 months.
Also preliminary early pages ranking very well
The site has only one incoming link, no adsense, banners or anything, vanilla html etc.
Built as per my last 2 sites so clearly something has changed!
Regards and hope to all
Rod
No, I haven't seen this. Although it's hard to say exactly. There are different behaviors I believe depending on how your site entered the sandbox, renamed with 301 is different than brand new.
Not ranking for its own name is interesting. However, this is a problem with google in general.
Currently if you are looking for softwarewidgetx, that's the product name, you'll need to go to my, or a few other websites that refer to it to find it, since google isn't able to place the product source site before 11. Just like google isn't able to give me productname + productnumber + manual[or specifications] usually anywhere in the top 20 or 30.
Every time I read MHES's posts I get a sneaking suspicion I am reading someone who works for google. Always trying to just slightly misdirect the thinking, slightly spin things. Or is it just that you're trying to make simple things complex and complex things simple? This is how spin works, a bit of truth mixed with some untruth, just enough to fool some of the people some of the time.
Every time I read MHES's posts I get a sneaking suspicion I am reading someone who works for google.
Always feels that way to me when I read his posts as well.
Seen an example of this, from #350 to nowhere. (Still #1 for all the allin commands though.)
OK I work for Google, and anyone in the travel sector, (especially in the UK) who wants good rankings must make their site totally flash and avoid any links with other sites. ;)
<truth>I work in Scotland, been doing seo for 4 years and have absolutely no connection with google.</truth>
>you continually admit new sites have different rules than old sites and then, truly bizarrely, you say the sandbox doesn't exist.
Just to be clear on my thoughts..."What has changed is getting any site into the top ten has got harder, especially a new site, because it doesn't have the 'history' or 'hilltop' links that mature with age and give you the ranking." I don't think therefore new or old sites are treated any differently.
>it's just a friggin' web site!
Yup, that can change your life.
Google is a very influential web site, but, let's not forget, it's just a friggin' web site!
Yeah, right! (Or as we say in Scotland "Aye, right!")
I apologize for the rant. The lack of perspective wears thin after a while. Back to the sandbox topic. Please!
Daveatifg: Read my post again. It most certainly was not off topic!
If this is an improvement initiative surely they would be happy to let the public know about it, officially or unofficially?
sandbox = hilltop
I've been wondering that too, recently. I just don't really understand how Hilltop (HT) can cause a lag like that. Either there is an authority or there isn't. If there is, it would affect old and new sites likewise. But wait! Isn't it common for new sites to get PR fast, but only non-topical PR from random affiliate sites? Hilltop on the other hand needs topical PR (LocalRank) and that is probably much harder to get and it takes a longer time to get it. I think I'm becoming a fan of "SB = HT" ...
SB=HT explains two things:
1) Delayed effect of links. With HT, topical links count. The rate in which topical links can be obtained is generally slower than that of non-topical links. A lot of people take any link because they aren't aware of the fact that they need to get the right kind.
2) Some people can get around the sandbox. These people simply obtained topical PR from authority sites, whether by dumb luck or wisdom. The lucky ones boast about having gotten around the SB but can't say how. The wise ones know how, but don't talk about it.
Now that Google is big, telling everyone how the sandbox works would be shooting yourself in the foot. That's why they don't brag about it.
Where did that come from? Are you seriously sugesting that I would be so naive that I would suggest that they would "tell everyone how the sandbox works?"
If the sandbox was a radical new feature introduced to their algorithm and designed to improve spam we would hae been told about it by now, officially or unofficially.
I think the link delay is seperate from pure hilltop, and it does not last too long. The interesting bit is where you start to reason through why old domains can get new pages ranking quite quickly. :)
It’s pure speculation but what if the sandbox isn’t a deliberate act to fight spam but it's a result of space, processing power and the development of separate indexes with separate algos as suggested in this thread, post 142. If this was the case then it could explain the Sandbox phenomenon, Google denials and their secrecy.
Perhaps the sandbox is not a direct effect on new websites but an effect on Google itself which in turn has had an indirect impact on all new domains.
This is of course completely backwards. Authority links get you in the sandbox, not the other way around. You have a good chance to avoid the sandbox by not getting any quality links, but getting a huge volume of blog and guestbook links from various IPs. There could be other ways too, but that is an obvious way.
A new niche site getting links from the ten best places for an old niche site is the kiss of death for the new site.
Both points can't be right, I'm going to assume both are wrong, or only half right. Unless somebody has direct experience with one or the other, getting out of the sandbox for money keywords on a site launched after the last reprieve, say this summer.
That's assuming several things:
the domain name was not linked to before this summer.
it's a brand new domain name, not purchased.
My guess is that if anything works, it's a combination of the two, but it takes at least 3 months, a slow adding of authority, topic area type links, and a slow adding of generic, low value links. However, it's still unclear if anyone has really beaten the sandbox using this method, I've read a few people who claimed to have done so, but they never say when the first link was pointed to the new domain, which is critical. Not when the real site went up, when the first link was pointed.
If the first link is pointed 3 months before the site goes up, then a 3 month link building campaign happens, that's 6 months, which is about as long as the sandbox would appear to be lasting currently. So success in this case does not disprove the sandbox.
To be clear, not ALL new sites go into the sandbox. Just the money keywords. Non-competitive sites can rank right away. MHes's guess that sandbox = hilltop could have a component of truth to it, but it's not the whole thing, since it completely ignores the now self evident capacity issues google is and was dealing with over the last year. So there's more to it than that.
Hilltop may be used to assign new pages to the sandbox however, but hilltop is not the sandbox I believe. Something has to be in place to decide what urls will go into what I'm assuming is still the primary index, thus also forcing new site owners to pay for adwords. Keep in mind that it was and is critical for google to keep their profit high before the IPO, and still now, since there's a timeline for when empoyees and other parties can begin selling off their stocks. The sandbox clearly is designed to deal with all 3 problem areas, with a superficial side result of supposedly cutting down on spam. But I think that's a consequence of the other components, not the primary cause.
I've added low quality links to a sandboxed site, that doesn't work, by the way, at least not as far as I see. there are high quality links 301'ed to the site, and those also don't work. However, there hasn't been any link development actively, I depend on organic additions.
But I'm not worried, this site has now been listed as an authority site by yahoo, top 10 for 20 million serps, #1 for targetted search phrases. Same in msn beta.
MHes, it was just a sneaking suspicion, I know you do what you do, it's just that your postings read as if you were putting out google spin.
steveb, I think you are absolutely correct, the sandbox is a flag that is attached to new url/domain pages. It may be directly linked to adwords. This would not surprise me, and would explain certain things I'm seeing. This would explain why noncompetitive keywords sites are not sandboxed.
If links are sandboxed then I couldn't rank a new site number one for a non-competitive keyword with a single pr 4 link two weeks after link is pointed to new domain. Ergo, links are not sandboxed. But the presence of the flag seems to push new site search terms down about 200 positions, more or less. Probably more for very competitive money terms. Presence of the sandbox flag together with a hilltop type search phrase = lowering of serp position. Presence of the flag without a hilltop type result gives the standard position. I'd also guess that this flag was used to assign the new site to the secondary index. As old pages go, new pages come, and the pages are moved from secondary to primary once the flag expires. Once the flag has expired, the pages are placed into primary index. This would be a very simple thing to do I think, which makes me suspect that we're looking at something along these lines. Too bad kilroy isn't around, he seems to understand the actual technical end of this stuff better than anyone else on this board.
Just my best guess given what everyone reports here.
[edited by: 2by4 at 9:46 pm (utc) on Dec. 19, 2004]
Listen up, everyone! Stop pushing BDW around!
In MSN, my targetted keywords rank: 7
In Yahoo, my targetted keywords rank: 14
In Google, my targetted keywords rank: 0 (surely, with those numbers above, I should be at least in the top 50)
I started the site in June and used Adwords to gain traffic. I guess that was the kiss of death.
I started the site in June and used Adwords to gain traffic. I guess that was the kiss of death.
Google has publicly rejected the idea that the sandbox is a deliberate act.
Passthedutchie where did you hear this? Have they really, publicly rejected this somewhere?
Listen up, everyone! Stop pushing BDW around!
I'm so dizzy my head is spinning, like a whirlpool it never ends :)
where did you hear this? Have they really, publicly rejected this somewhere?
Yes, Matt Cutts publicly rejected this at the London Search Engine Strategies meeting back in June.
Matt Cutts on the other hands basically thought there was nothing in it and that there is no sandboxing “I don’t know where this sandboxing theory started from..(the emphasis is mine.)
This is all I've been able to find and I don't really think that this is public rejection. It sounds more like a politician's denial and we all know what they're worth ;)
To me this is just an instance where a Google employee has been asked in public about the sandbox and had to say something. What would you have said if you are in his shoes?
AFAIK there has been no REAL, OFFICIAL denial or for that matter any real comment from G. Feel free to correct me if I am wrong.
There is good reason for this and that is that this sandbox, effect, call it what you will, DOES exist and it most definitely has NOT yet been abandoned. I would like to ask Matt Cutts or anyone else at Google this question.
"Is there something in your algorithm, or within your technology, that either deliberately or otherwise, prevents most new sites from ranking for an indefinite period?"
"Is there something in your algorithm, or within your technology, that either deliberately or otherwise, prevents most new sites from ranking for an indefinite period?"
I would only add to your question this at the end "or a specific period of time"
BeeDee has put forth the $64,000 question, however I doubt we will ever get an answer of any kind to it.
Probable answer is yes..... being 8 million more established sites there already.
If you’re looking, or hoping, for any kind of insight into the sandbox from them I don’t see that happening. In fact if they ever do respond, it will not be a clear cut, straight forward answer.
I don’t fault them for this method of communication with webmasters, but it is frustrating.
"Something has to be in place to decide what URLs will go into what I'm assuming is still the primary index, thus also forcing new site owners to pay for AdWords. Keep in mind that it was and is critical for Google to keep their profit high before the IPO, and still now, since there's a timeline for when employees and other parties can begin selling off their stocks. The sandbox clearly is designed to deal with all 3 problem areas, with a superficial side result of supposedly cutting down on spam. But I think that's a consequence of the other components, not the primary cause. "
THEORY: Occam's Razor is rarely applied to Google. The Search Algo is complicated, so we assume the rest is complicated. Couple people including 2by4 and nzmatt have hinted at this ...
FACT: revenue = price * volume
price = Ad Words bids
volume = number of searches per month
OPINION:
one presumes that Sandbox is applied to a keyphrase if
if revenue(keyword) > Sandboxfilteramount
Sandboxfilteramount could be $10,000 a month to choose a number. Any keyword greater than that means sandbox. Keywords of greater than a certain $$ amount (regardless of revenue) could ALSO trigger the Sandbox.
There may be thousands of other factors but ... why? Following the above means that Google maximizes its revenue both through AdWords and by reducing number of SEO'd sites (and SEOs!) out there. More complicated formulae are not needed.
Also, consider that while G's engineers tend to be very bright and love complicated formulae. That's how they think and were trained in school.
The money guys went to business school though and THEY were trained to use a simpler set of formulae. The revenue model to flagging keywords makes sense in the gut of a business person (me, for example) and is easily explained to someone who is NOT mathematically oriented.
Anyway, if this is correct, then it also means that the other factors such as "number of results" are indicators of the tripwire, but not always accurate.
Just my 2 AdCents.
CF
ps Div01's DARN GOOD QUESTION ::
When are the insiders eligible to sell shares?
I attend a school for engineering where one of the google founders might have gone ;-), they don't teach us to be complex. Simple is best and while the google engineers say everything is complex that could be BS.
A lot of famous people believed in simplicity, ever heard of Einstein (E=mc^2) or the likes? A lot of this world is simple and honestly, I think google is making people believe that their indexing is a lot more complex than it seems.
Why waste a ton of computer memory running fifty thousand page rank iterations so you are statistically 0% flawed. Surely, running 10 will probably get you within 88%, good enough for most things. I guess it depends on the time constant in their formula, but like I said, a lot of the things in this world are simple, like gravity, it just takes a smart person to figure out why they are simple.
To me revenue(keyword) > (sandbox threshold revenue) is as simple as it gets, well after all sites = sandbox, but I don't think that is the case.
