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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
And if there is a difference, how can you tell?
You can tell by the shared experience of thousands of webmasters describing their woes on hundreds of forums like this - for one! :)
But, how can you tell that their "woes" are due to "the sandbox" and not bad rankings?
What's the difference?
I remember when the sandbox was only 2 months, then next month it was 3 months, now it's 7-10 months? Or is Google simply not able to place new sites, and hasn't been able to fix the problem? What if this isn't deliberate at all? Just a thought. To me Google's continuing silence on this issue speaks very loudly, if this was some type of antispam measure might we not expect to hear them trumpeting this fact as an achievement? Whereas if it's a failure, pure and simple, it's pretty understandable why they don't say a word about it...
if this was some type of antispam measure might we not expect to hear them trumpeting this fact as an achievement
The problem with Google saying "All new domains are suppressed for 8 months and that's the official way we deal with spam" would find all the spammers buying up old domain names that were already listed and getting their spam in that way.
The war against spam will never have particularly open rules - it can't have!
DerekH
But, how can you tell that their "woes" are due to "the sandbox" and not bad rankings? What's the difference?
If you can't tell you're wasting your time in here ;) Try searching for highly specific phrases, the company name, etc.
The problem with Google saying "All new domains are suppressed for 8 months and that's the official way we deal with spam" would find all the spammers buying up old domain names that were already listed and getting their spam in that way.
Are you seriously suggesting that the spammers don't know about this because Google didn't tell them?
Getting back on topic, no, the sandbox definitely not been abandoned (or fixed depending on your point of view).
It helps people with low rankings explain away their shortcomings.
The secret is: slowing acquiring one way links over a period of time. Also, a small recip link trading schedule has been established. The main thing I've looked for is a wide diversity of IP ranges. When I do a link command now, I see many, many pages indicating unique domains on unique ip ranges.
Lots of directory listings, like Yahoo and other paid ones, and carefully targeted link trading. I try to get links from sources that have been in Google's index for a long time. My thinking is that when "trusted sources" link to you, your new website is more trustworthy in general to Google. Hope this helps.
No. 3 is the kicker. I wonder if the site doesn't share an IP with any other, if that would have an impact. I remember hearing a highly respected SEO say (in San Jose) he had anecdotal evidence that sites on their own IP address typically ranked better than shared IP sites. His comment was made independent of the whole "sandbox" issue, but it could be another cog in the wheel.
It helps people with low rankings explain away their shortcomings.
Your smugness does not become you and it is NOT helpful. The sandbox DOES exist even if you have managed to find a way round it, which without evidence I cannot accept.
Google has responded to our requests saying there is no "penalty" on our site...despite our clear evidence that the exact same pages put under a different older domain leaps up to the top of the SERPS, where it used to be before we adopted a new (never used) domain name (same PR on the two sites, too).
Seems like GoogleGuy's silence (he must be aware of this lengthy thread) means there is something to the rumor. (Or has he responded, and I've missed it?)
All of these sites come up in the top five on Yahoo and MSN beta, but not at all on google. A surfer using these terms should be giving a search engine enough information to bring up these sites, which are all in Google's index. Google can't (or won't) do it, the others can.
Why even mention that strawman? Again, there is no presumption that new sites should rank #1, or even top ten. The problem first is sites that any adequate algorithm would rank in the top fifty get lucky to break the top 200.
Google is doing a lame job, whether intentionally or via a failure of some sort, with anything close to proper ranking of quality domains made since March.
And the ability for sites to occasionally break the sandbox via different tactics also means nothing in terms of search quality.
So when did the site go up, how long did the link campaign go on for, and when did you start placing for high end serps, say 1 million results or greater, or at least 1/2 million? If you're not placing for serps of that level then you haven't proved anything at all.
However, this strange refusal to believe that something that very clearly exists does not exist is astounding, is there some vestige of faith in the fact that Google can fundamentally do no wrong? I hope not, I have some good stock I can sell you however if you do believe that.... great companies, can do no wrong, called worldcom. I also have some enron shares if you're interested. The web moves fast, new sites come, old ones go, a search engine that can't handle that objective fact cannot handle the modern web. Some of those new sites will be immediately relevant, others won't, but applying a blanket block on all of them is total failure of the search algo/system. Calling failure success has a particularly Orwellian feel to me, how about you? Google currently is unable to correctly establish relevancy of new websites, pure and simple. That's not a plus, it's not an achievement, it's a failure.
However, there is a simple proof that it does in fact exist, which is the prelimary natural boost for a new site, then it falling down for about 6 months, give or take, before rising to its natural position. Plus you can do all those allinurl things and find that your site is pretty much exactly where you thought it should be were it not for the sandbox.
[edited by: 2by4 at 7:26 pm (utc) on Dec. 9, 2004]
Any rough estimates of what percentage of anchors contained a term pointing to a page that is ranking well for that term?
Are you saying if my believed-to-be Sandboxed site comes up for my company name it is not sandboxed? If so, I need to start scrambling?
My situation on the mentioned site:
Site Launched, March 04:
"Company Name": Google #1 / Yahoo #1 (387,000 results in Google)
"Main 3 word term": Google Nowhere / Yahoo Top 10 (600,000 results in Google)
"Main 2 word term" Google Nowhere / Yahoo 250 (22,500,000 results in Google, highly competitive term, 1000's of SEO'ed site, over $10.00/click on Overture, I have been at #15 on Google before on this term with another site)
"Main 2 word term + city" Google #10 / Yahoo #1 (800,000 results in Google with Yahoo Directory, Superpages, & sites with hidden text ahead of me)
"Main 2 word term + city + state" Google Top 30 / Yahoo #1 (700,000 results in Google)
I am not found in any other term over 1 million results, except extremely obscure terms that no one would search for anyways.
Sandboxed?
And many of those seos are in fact creating sites that should be in the top 10, or at least the top 50. Why? Because they probably are better than most of the other junk out there, better site and information architecture etc. So when that skillset can't rank, it's not so much a generic whining, it's a meaningful observation.
So when this miniscule fragment of the web market, with significantly better skills than the average webmaster/seo, experience the sandbox, the typical response is, well, not all new sites can be top 10. This is a total straw man argument, the posters on this board, and boards like it, do not represent all new sites, they represent a priviliged group, which both could and should be expected to rank much higher than the www as a whole, it would be nice to stop pretending this isn't the case.
Think about it, there are like 100 active posters on this board, give or take. They are generating x number of new sites a year, not very many. Many of these sites should in fact be ranking well, maybe not top 10, but well. I'm not going to blame people here for Google's failure, if MSN comes out of the box and doesn't have this problem, what will all you say then who currently say google can do no wrong, google is fighting spam by blocking new sites, etc.
This is a total straw man argument, the posters on this board, and boards like it, do not represent all new sites, they represent a priviliged group, which both could and should be expected to rank much higher than the www as a whole...
Isn't it possible that has Google has gotten better at detecting even subtle SEO techniques over time? And that Google will take whatever steps are necessary to keep a "privileged group" from having undue influence on its SERPs?
I think that's it in nutshell. Sandbox or no sandbox, why is so much rubbish allowed to pollute google results (and I'm not talking about genuine competitors, but the rubbish that offers nothing of true value) when sites that would offer exactly what the searcher wants (be they commercial or otherwise) are nowhere to be found.
Today I was searching for something for work. Top result a directory. Keyword used plenty of times on the page then the message - sorry no results found in this directory that matched your search.
So Google ranks a directory with zero content and no leads to where I want to go numero uno out of 42,000 results (it was a very specific geographical search).
The web moves fast, new sites come, old ones go, a search engine that can't handle that objective fact cannot handle the modern web. Some of those new sites will be immediately relevant, others won't, but applying a blanket block on all of them is total failure of the search algo/system.
2by4 you have summed it up perfectly! Thank you.
