Sandboxing Your Competition

Seems like a very solid strategy for keeping out competition

[bears5122]

As many of us have started to notice, sites are typically thrown in the sandbox when they are new, and have shown a sharp increase in links from the on-set.

Now wouldn't it be in your best interest to sandbox your competition? You see a new site throwing up some PPC ads in your space, you immediately give them a few run-of-site links from some other sites you run and watch them get sandboxed.

Maybe unethical, but seemingly a solid approach for anyone in a competitive industry.

[bears5122]

Im think Google will be or maybe already have implemented whois information to detect changes in ownership of domains into their algo, so change of domain ownership could posibly be treated the same as a new domain/site .....

Of course they are. They became a registrar for a reason.

[garytexas]

There is no sand box, and there is nothing wrong with ROS links.
Google states, that you can not buy your way to the top.
Newer sites usualy have less content pages and inbound links, not to mention low PR. Why would googlebot want to spend a lot of time visting those type of pages?
Make more quality content pages, get more links (include ones with high PR)and stay a way from banned unlisted, or sites with the grey or white bar on them, until you get established. Established = more pages, more back links(with the right anchor text)"and a bigger green bar."
I believe there is a filter that kicks in when a certain percentage of inbound anchor text links exceeds about 75% of your total inbound links "maybe lower if you do not have many back links, and higher if you do" especially if one has the same anchor text in thier Title, H1, and alt tags. This is the problem with ROS links.
You maybe considered as buying your way to the top, or unnatural linking.
Every body wants to register widget.com then make the title Widget, then add the Heading/H1, which will be widget, and put 10 alt tags on the page, that of course, contain the text widget.
The only thing left to do is buy 10,000,000 PR 8 links that contain the anchor text "widget".
That is buying your way to the top.
Your site will not be penalized or delisted.
But, you will trip a filter, "in the old Google Algo", that will probably knock you back 1-2000 positions.
There are ways around the unnatural link filter.
We do not call them widgets in Texas, we call them "them thar wigets", and I believe they are called widgies in New Jersy.
So, I might make my first ROS link buys, for 5 different search terms/anchor text, of the same amount of inbound links, or a liitle higher for my most important anchor text/search term.
Until you get established, do not have more than 60% of your total inbound links, with the same anchor text, or comming from the same site. That is just good advertisting buys and natural linking.
With all those ROS link buys, you may be so far up the search engines, other sites will naturally want to link to you.
"don't be a widget"

[Natashka]

>none of us were penalized and the traffic we send to each other is sometimes almost the same as the one from Google itself.
Yup, that would be right, hardly any traffic from google then?

That was an exaggeration of course, but still.... All depends on a site's topic. Do you know how much traffic can sometimes bring one popular celebrity site or smth like imdb.com to another celebrity site? Especially nowadays, when Google serps look more like a spam and porn farm on most celebs names.

Visitors need results, content, pictures, info. They don't care who sits in which sandbox being penalized for what. If they don't find what they are searching for in Google or get tired of spam (i.e. celeb's name only in page's title, description and in affiliate links), they will search somewhere else. Which they do all the time! That's why related ROS links are very important in some markets, and I don't see why would Google penalize for that, a lot of people STILL build their sites with not only His Majesty Google in mind.

Or arts and crafts for example, I also have a craft site, and nobody penalizes one craft site for linking directly to another craft site from the homepage. You may say: who cares about crafts?! But we are talking about Google's approach here, and it should be the same for every topic: software, crafts, travel, celebrities...

[McMohan]

Welcome to WebmasterWorld garytexas :)

Hope you will have a great time with lots to learn here in days ahead.

[reseller]

garytexas

<Make more quality content pages, get more links (include ones with high PR)and stay a way from banned unlisted, or sites with the grey or white bar on them, until you get established. Established = more pages, more back links(with the right anchor text)"and a bigger green bar.">

Welcome.

I have been doing some thinking lately about Google´s PR and the famous bar.

I feel that Google either is going to drop the PR in the shape we know now or establishing a new evaluation system instead.

Reason is that the fathers of the current PR bar haven't taking in account or dreamed that the PR is going to be a sell/buy/exchange tools to achieve better positions on the serps which is the case now.

Its maybe therefore Google isn't updating the PR values anymore.

[phantombookman]

Hope you will have a great time with lots to learn here in days ahead.

Nice one :)

[energylevel]

<< There is no sand box, and there is nothing wrong with ROS links. >>

Sorry this is BS .. there is a sandbox, and the term coined 'sandbox' is inaccurate it but does exist and new sites do get supressed on the SERPS (not totally excluded I might add). Maybe some non-commercial sites may bypass this as the terms they target are NOT so called money terms, but in my experience it exists, whether you slowly acquire inbound links, don't acquire links at all or acquire them reasonably fast and vary the anchor text etc etc.....

I'd like to know how many people developing NEW commercial sites on a regular basis are actually saying that the sandbox doesn't exist!

[Elixir]

Energylevel...leave them to it let them say the sandbox does'nt exist and deal with their client in 6 months time. It is mind boggling that people are still denying this. At SES in New York Google admitted there was an "aging filter" so maybe Google does'nt know what they are talking about!

[garytexas]

There is a filter.It has been there for a while. There are a whole lot of others too.
I have heard it refered to as "sandbox", "un natural link filter and now aging filter.

But, it is not about Google, your SEO has changed.
the filter/sand box has been there.
What I do for my PR 5 and 6 sites with good back links, I do not do for my new ones, excluding the on page factors(basic seo)
You want to get your client to the top as fast as possible, in that effort, one tends to throw too much of the same anchor text links, from the same source at the title of the new site. (note: this may now include not only the title, it may iclude the H1,H2 and Alt tags due to spammy blogs and ROS sites.
This is not a factor if one has a PR 5 or above
And I have noticed it on some of my high PR 4 Sites, but, they have very strong high # of back links.
So, I am guessing once a site has a certain PR or # of backs, it is not a factor. It is not a time period, it is the new SEO method, which includes, getting the most of the same anchor text links to that site, as fast as possible.
"Oops the spammy flag just dropped"
A new site would not have enough PR or backlinks(containing different but same the anchor text)for that not to be considered spam.
Fool the spammy Flag, or it will fool you.
Is an algo machine smart enough to know what different, but the same is? I think not, or those 2 guys from stanford would not keep tweaking it.
PS, I am not up on the latest Google Seo terms, such as "sandbox"
From this point forward, can we call it the "spammy flag"

[bears5122]

So wouldn't giving your competitors ROS links for their money keyword cause the "Oops the spammy flag just dropped" in your opinion?

[kovacs]

It is my experience that hardcore referrer spamming is an easy way to get your own sites banned if you over do it, on a new or mid-sized site. Ergo, it would be an easy way to do the same to a small or mid-sized competitor... it probably wouldn't affect a large authority site though.

[larryhatch]

Dumb question here:

So far, sandbox discussions seem to involve commercial sites.
How about hobby, information or general interest sites?

Suppose I put up a non-commercial site about growing lemon trees at home?

Would that get 'sandboxed' too, or is it likelier to get indexed
as soon as incoming links are discovered, assuming it becomes popular?

By non-commercial, I mean no online sales or products or services,
and no adsense or similar ads. -Larry

[bears5122]

If your site is focuesed around terms that have more than a few Adwords advertisers, I've found that you have a likely chance of being sandboxed.

As much as your site may be all about information, Google wants all new sites paying for those adwords.

[garytexas]

Larry,I do not know how google would know if you were a commercial site.
About a month ago they said they would begin recognizing the no follow tag on links.
This was an effort to fight blog spam.
But, it opened back up the opportunity to add a bunch of affiliate links back to ones sites, and not get penalized as an affiliate site.
If your site is about lemon trees, go ahead and throw up about ten affiliate links that sell lemon trees.
Add the words rel="no follow" to the links.
When googlebot comes around it will not follow those links, thus preserving your pagerank.
The searchers on your page will follow the links and you get the sales credit.
You will look like a small high ranked Lemon tree info site. Now that you have preserved your page rank, and are at the top of the engines, reward google for the no follow tag, by adding adsense adds.
In turn they will send you a check for all the clicks on thier adds about lemon trees.
Don't you love it when google seems to be on our side.
Google says you are a highly relevant lemon tree info site, and we are all making money.
"Heh, you know more about lemon trees than me and the google algo machine.
Good Luck "lemon"
PS, were you a info site or a commercial site?

[garytexas]

Yes, I do believe if you were a new site, low PR and low back links. Your have a couple hundred back links.
You are the most relevant site on the internet for the search term "SEO".This site you have, is the best most relevant site ever created, ever to grace the search engines. Everybody in the world wants to read it. It has just become # 1 on yahoo and msn.
It moved up to the bottom of page 1 on Google, because you added the keyword "SEO" to your title, h1 heading and alt tag. This site has info how to create high quality and relevant pages & Blogs for Google. This imformation is going to cure all of Googles spam problems, so the truly relevant pages rise to the top.
But, some black hat SEO guy throws 20,000 ROS links at your site with the anchor text "SEO". This site will not be in the top 1-2000 search listings on Google.
Go to MSN or Yahoo, it will probably still be on the first page. Every body is going to MSN and Yahoo Now.
They are getting their version of adsense going, who cares about relevancy.
"Gooooooooogle Guyyyyyy were are youuuuu!"

[robotsdobetter]

So wouldn't giving your competitors ROS links for their money keyword cause the "Oops the spammy flag just dropped" in your opinion?

No, I have found my links and clients links on spamming sites and was never affected by it and wouldn't lose sleep over it.

As much as your site may be all about information, Google wants all new sites paying for those adwords.

That's a lie, Google would lose more in the long term than they would gain in the sort term, I think they have ran a bussiness long enough to know this!

[garytexas]

Yes, if one were to throw 1000s of ROS links at a competitor, containing the correct anchor Text, (excluding very high PR or backlink, authority sites)
That competitor will not be in the first 1000 spots in a very short time PERIOD!
This pertains to Google only

I do not advocate any of this, I merely comment on what I have seen from Google. But, every time they click that "algo" knob to far to the right, it creates opportunities to the left."I know there is not a knob".
But, I am starting to like this,"Sandbox","ROS", "Algo Knob"
PS, does anybody agree with any thing I have said?
Or disagree?
Those who disagree please add your URL here____________
I have a 97,000 page site, with a ROS link bar at the bottom of the pages. "Ha Ha Ha "

[minnapple]

A ros from a p-flavored site can associate the receiving site into it's neighborhood.
Try to rank on children's products when the site has been heavily associated with p$rn.

[larryhatch]

Hi GaryT:

I was referring to a hobby type site, completely non-commercial.
I only grew one lemon tree, and I picked that out of the air as an example.
The tree is doing fine. I'm just wondering if hobby sites get sandboxed too.
I never use rel="nofollow", results could be highly unpredictable. -Larry

[garytexas]

That is not something I would do, due to the long lasting backlinks seen by others, I am too ethical. But......
A ROS from a p-flavored site with non-p-flavored anchor text, to a non p-flavored recieving site, will not hurt you, if you have the PR or backlinks to handle all the inbound links, and if those inbound links are high PR, you may recieve a pass PR thru. Try explaining those backlinks to the customers of a childrens product site. This is guess on my part, due to the fact that I have never used p-flavored links. I will defer this to the senior member.

[prairie]

Someone gave me an unrequested ROS link to my non-www address several months ago (ie [)...] and now my original www ranking has dropped 5 places.

I didn't ask for the ROS link, and I believe there could now be a combined duplicate content + new link penalty, ripe for unfair exploitation.

[energylevel]

<<< So far, sandbox discussions seem to involve commercial sites.
How about hobby, information or general interest sites? >>>

Unfortunatley we're dealing with an algo and not humans, so the filter is going to be triggered by certain words or combinations, it's a fact it could be a hobby site but could still trigger the filter

Here's a few .... loan, property, travel, etc.....

[wurzel]

I'm a one man band commercial broker and my main competitor for Google ranking is a subsidiary of a major UK bank who invariably occupy the top spot for the single search word that we are both after.

According to Google the company have 349 web pages linking to them plus a further 1,660 that "contain the term". When examining the links more closely it seems that many of them come from one particular website that is obviously hosted and maintained by the same company as the style is so similar and it contains over 9,000 pages all of which link to my competitor and most of which contain so called press releases that are really nothing more than site padding..

Second place on Google to a major UK bank would be no mean achievement normally but I am also suffering from Google's recent decision to apply DMOZ descriptions so my careful prepared sales pitch has gone in favour of the flat and boring DMOZ description. My competitor isn't in DMOZ so they retain their own site description and their site description is now so much more enticing than mine :(

[garytexas]

Wurzel

Are you, or your competitor, listed on yahoo?
Is so, try a linkdomain:yoursite and linkdomain:competitorsite

Googles backlinks are scrambled in terms of PR position. They also omit up to 75% percent of the total inbound links

The linkdomain of yahoo gives you a real good indication of the real inbound links and thier strenght.
I say "strength" instead of PR, because in some instances, is is better to have a high PR 4 site with a low # of outbound links linked to you.
A low PR 5 site with a high amount of out bound links on the page with cause dilution. (there are othe factors)
Additionally, I am looking at my linkdomain:mysite on Yahoo, the # of links of my site seems to be about right, and the top 10 page strength is dead on, from # 1 to # 10.
I would ask one of the other members about the description, I do not know!
One may be able to remove the descrip and put it on the first line of the page.
Get a hold of the moderator, I would bet he knows.

[garytexas]

Does anybody else agree with me on Google Back links?
I say they scramble the top PR pages order on purpose, and omit a random amount of links.
But, Yahoo shows the true # of links and thier strength/PR order ie 1,2,3.

Assuming both sites are listed and updated on a normal basis, from both engines.

Is Google Gaming us?

[Elixir]

Wurzel, copy them. You can do Press Release on PR Web for $30 a time and free PR leap. Look at their backlinks and contact those web sites to link to you. I think the ROS being hammered are the bought ROS and if the parent site is linking to this site to promote them it would be a tough call for Google to penalize them as it seems a perfectly logical thing for the parent site to do.

[wurzel]

>>>>Are you, or your competitor, listed on yahoo?
Is so, try a linkdomain:yoursite and linkdomain:competitorsite <<<<

Most odd as I have just done that and found that Yahoo says that I have 1,560 links whilst the competitor only has 256

I have the top slot on Yahoo but the big bank subsidiary can only manage 16th place on page 2 but they have an associated company that has a couple of pages on Yahoo's first page.

In view of the fact that I have to do all of my SEO work myself using hints and tips that I have picked up by lurking here I am very pleased that I occupy number 2 on Google and 1 on Yahoo whilst managing to keep pace with a high street bank whom I know spend thousands on SEO

[garytexas]

Wurzel, are you, or your competitor at PR 5 or above?
and is this a single word seach term?

PS if you are #2 on Google and # 1 on Yahoo do not touch a thing!

But, one may go to the overture search tool or word tracker and find other search terms that are related to yours specificaly the ones that have your one word term in them, and add content pages for them.
Example:: your term is "loan", that you rank so highly for.
One might want to add some optimzed pages, to thier site for cheap loan, fast loan, low interest loan, best loan, borrow, borrow Uk, uk loan, scotland loan.

As far as I am concerned you have done it with your search term.
Now you can do it again with related seach terms, or different search terms that mean the same thing.
I used to concentate on getting specific search terms to # 1 but it got me popped by google filters.
I would rather be above the fold for a lot of similar terms and or variations of the same term.
If your competition is getting all those anchor text links from one source, he will get popped.
And while he is sreaming "sandbox", you will slip back into # 1, and maybe for some other high traffic related terms too.
Good luck
Overture search terms here
[inventory.overture.com...]

[decaff]

if you're are trying to game them...they will simply push back and game your ***

[wurzel]

>>>>if you're are trying to game them<<<<

I'm not sure I understand what you mean. I am not trying to do anything and in answer to Gary's question my site has a PR of 5 and the other site has a PR of 6

There is a web development and hosting company that "look after" a few of the funders' web sites in the specific category of commercial finance that I operate in. Additionally they operate a few sites themselves with all of the sites linking to each other and in particular have one site with 9,000 pages every one of which has a link to my bank subsidiary competitor.

I am happy with the relative positions of my site on the major search engines but was merely trying to point out that Google doesn't seem to penalise sites with thousands of ROS links from the same site and it wouldn't even surprise me if both linker and linkee sites were on the same server either.