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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
I don't think its a question of finding a crack, its more a question of what has changed. Many older sites have survived and that's the key. The question should not be why is my new site not ranking, but why is my old site still doing well?
>I wish the others would cut the crap, stop blowing their own trumpets and come up with positive sensible suggestions
I don't think many are blowing trumpets but just saying that the sandbox is not a factor for failing to rank well with a new site. They are saying it is possible to rank well, but there is not a snowball in hell chance of putting it out on this board.
Just like in the old days, a site has to ring all the right bells, and thats the reality of today's seo as well. Information has just got a lot more valuable and if you have put the work in to figure it out, then a bit of smugness and secrecy is well deserved.
We would need more people with more sites in different sectors trying that to prove it more scientifically, but it makes some sense.
Whether there's a sandbox or not, google seems to have a paranoid algo right now (to the point of bein detrimental), or it's the capacity issue.
Maybe the no outgoing links thing may be part of a cocktail that when put together helps a new site escape the sandbox.
I commend anybody has discovered categorically a method of escaping the sandbox for new sites .. it's strange though that this magic formula hasn't been made public usually someone can't help but let the cat out of the bag!
I don't think there is a magic bullet, there is a combination of factors and many webmasters who have achieved a breakthrough are not 100% certain why.
I don't think its a question of finding a crack, its more a question of what has changed. Many older sites have survived and that's the key. The question should not be why is my new site not ranking, but why is my old site still doing well?
My old sites are doing well using methods that are essentially similar to sites that I have launched since then. My main site has been pos 1 or 2 now for many months for its main search term, which is a four letter acronym. It just occured to me that another site I launched for a client in March this year targets two different four letter acronyms in a completely unrelated field. One is engineering related, the other is education.
The techniques I use on both sites are essentially similar. Here are some facts:
My "old" site four letter acronym returns 464K results on Google and I am currently in #2 position using my methods.
"New" site (March 04) acronym 1 returns 357K results and the site is nowhere to found amongst these using my methods.
"New" site acronym 2 returns 972K results and the site is nowhere to found amongst these.
The new site uses a completely unrelated, two word combination as both its company name and domain name - something like (www. funky-title.com). When I search for these two words the site appears in position 54. This is classic sandbox for anyone who is interested.
No it isn't. A well known operating system's index page has the text 'company information' on it, yet this page does not rank in the top 100 for this phrase despite being pr10. There are lots of 'on page' optimisation reasons why and these will apply to you as well.
That should be the question with a definitive "YES we should" answer.
:>~
MLHmptn
Good point. I think most people who are savvy enough to have had success also realise that they are not 100% sure and don't want to be shot down by you and others :)
I think there is no doubt new sites have done well, there are some serious players here who have said this. I believe that it is a combination of perhaps 20 factors, many of which are done unknowingly and by accident. There are not many hobby sites doing well in competitive searches at the moment and they probably know it is relatively easy to get a few high ranking terms for obscure phrases. I did a 'protest site' for a local issue a few months back and it ranks highly for specific phrases, this was achieved using old optimisation methods but this is a different ball game to getting a new site ranking for money terms. I think a few of the 'I have cracked it' brigade are just not competing in the same league and have totally misguided conclusions. All new sites get into the index, but if you are pitching for a big money term you need serious seo to get near the top. Thats just seo, nothing to do with Google surpressing new sites, just hard, difficult and frustrating seo.
No way... I wish! But in the last few days I have realised that some of my new pages rank well for some phrases and by examining the possible reasons a pattern emerges. I have had old sites drop dramatically and other old sites stay.... the pattern fits. Therefore age of site is not the issue, it is the rules that have changed and unwittingly some of the old sites fitted the new rules. I have modified older dropped sites and got top rankings within days, the new sites have risen but I think I can see what they need to rise further. These are all in hideously competitve areas, so displacing other established sites is difficult, a fact which has never changed!
>as anyone who has done simple tests can attest
Try doing complicated ones.
There are tons of factors to consider. Here's a classic:
-new domain (4 mo's)
-keywords in domain (keyword1-keyword2.com)
-included in DMOZ (but not updated in G Directory yet)
-dozens of inbound text links from quality, relevant sites
-several outbound text links to authority sites from home page
-several outbound text links to highly relevant sites (same keywords) from partners page
-maximum of 3 affiliate links per page
-forum
-no adwords or adsense
-site map & text navigation
-shared IP address
This site ranks well for non-competitive terms but not in top 100 for primary, competitive term. I've recently added AdSense to the site and purchased AdWords for non-competitive phrases. Site is 2nd on MSNBeta for the primary, competitive keyword (800+ searches per day, 287,000 results in Google). This isn't alot of competition, yet this site has been on the beach for the first four months of it's life. I'm rolling out another, similar site but taking a completely different tack.
Surprised no-one has registered googlesandbox.com ;-)
Google has finally got around to picking up the index, but still no subpages. Google in the past has always picked up eveything lightning fast. Googlebot also seems lethargic next to the Ink Slurp in my stats. I'm totally shocked. This is not the same Google.
siteseo mysteriously added
Rollo - that has nothing to do with the "sandbox" effect...
OK, and I concur, but WHY is Google so slow in indexing and even reindexing certain pages?
Some of mine site pages have gone from daily visits to monthly visits, and yet my SERPS position is still strong.
Any answers?
DerekH
I dunno, that's just speculation...but I bet if your pages haven't changed in awhile and there are no "fresh" links, G may stop coming around. Spiders look at date-stamps as well, and if the page doesn't get altered in a long time, they may decide to save a trip and not visit very often.
Surprised no-one has registered googlesandbox.comI didn't want to bother with any trademark issues so I chose sandlag.com
From the shadows, siteseo mysteriously whispers, "lack of fresh links to your pages?"<snip>I bet if your pages haven't changed in awhile and there are no "fresh" links, G may stop coming around. Spiders look at date-stamps as well, and if the page doesn't get altered in a long time, they may decide to save a trip and not visit very often.
Quite so. I follow your reasoning entirely. In my case, it was a site overhaul (changing some templates for presentation, rather than content) that made every page "changed" - that, and a small namechange that actually freshened about 1/4 of all the links to our site - and that was the point at which Google snubbed the popular pages, and ripped everything out of the index and made it URL only, topped off, as a coup de grace, by deciding that as it *had* all changed, none of the pages would get indexed for aeons...
From a couple of dozen pages visited almost daily, and the rest weekly, down to two pages visited in a month.
And all because I made the site LOOK nicer...
<smile>
Ah well, never mind. But yes, your explanation is entirely reasonable, and I'm sure fits the model I used to have in my head.
But on one of my sites I've moved from sandbox to socialoutcastbox, which is somehow more degrading <grin>
DerekH
PS - wondering if Google ought to say
"8 billion pages indexed and 3 billion put somewhere for later but we're not sure where"
Classic!
Yes, I rollo' in the sanbox a lot.Lol... My sides are killing me...
The sandbox sort of seems to be a catchall phrase for a number of issues, slow indexing may be a symptom of a larger attitude toward new sites... but just real quick... all the links are new and on-topic links, the website is new. Google is just ignoring them while Yahoo is eating them up... the MSN beta is indexing them faster as well.
I don't think the sandbox has been abandoned, only applied differently. I almost wonder if it has a semi-random component to it so as to stagger the victims so that all the top sites for certain keywords don't disappear and thereby really effect the SERPs. In our areas, all the top say 10 sites are optimized the same and have many of the same links in and out and high PRs, many are identicle in structure right down to the name of the directories.
I've got one site right in the middle of the sandbox now and the Google Team informed me there was no penalty. Furthermore, it's definitely not due to optimization/links/PR issues as websites with PR 2 and 3s with perhaps one mention of one keyword buried somewhere in the body and nothing else to recommend themselves out rank us. We're so far down, we're in the area where our SERPs neighbors aren't even on topic anymore. It wasn't a slow descent, but more like top 5 to page 13 in an instant.
My take on the sandbox is that it's sort of like the draft. Unlucky websites from the common classes get called up and sent off to Adwords while the elite get deferments. At least that seems to be the effect.
I think most people who are savvy enough to have had success also realise that they are not 100% sure and don't want to be shot down by you and others.
Those who have been back here gloating (no need to name names - we know who they are) about having beat the sandbox for the last few weeks seem sure enough. Are you casting aspersions as to the veracity of their claims? Are you now saying that they don't know if they have beaten it?
Why don't we have a poll amongst those of use who have half a clue? How many people have sites that have been sandboxed versus those that have not?
(Please don't respond if you don't believe there is a sandbox. You guys should be happy in the knowledge that things are hunky dory so don't spoil it for those of us who are deluded and suffering from paranoia.)
Here mine! Since February I have created 12 websites and of these I am pretty sure that all 12 have been sandboxed.
