Sandbox

[discrete298]

My site is about 8 months old and gets decent traffic from Yahoo and MSN, but only gets only a couple of visitors a day from Google for mostly obscure keyphrase searches. The site has many inbound links from pages with PR 5 or higher.

The question is, Is this site in G's sandbox? How long does it take for a site to break out of the sandbox? How will I know when my site gets out of the sandbox?

[stargeek]

JoeHouse:

I'd say never going into the sandbx is the best way to "get out".

[2by4]

stargeek, I'd agree, the only people here I've read who I believe when they say they've avoided the sandbox avoided it altogether, once you're in it it's very difficult to get out.

Re the traffic jump, basically if the site starts from scratch, it would have built traffic at a certain level based on improving serp results, backlinks etc. The way I think of it is if you start with 0, and draw a line from start to de-sandboxing levels of traffic, the site will come out performing exactly as if it had had a natural growth rate over that time.

My experience is almost identical to beedees, when a site I do was de-sandboxed, traffic went up roughly 15 times basically overnight, to exactly where I knew it should have been given the growth of the site, it's actual ranking positions, how well it did on other search engines etc.

Re the duplicate content question on the irish site, it's not sandboxed, you have duplicate content, and google has detected it, that's not a sandbox matter, that's a penalty for having duplicate content.

[BeeDeeDubbleU]

Ok so if some sites get out of the sandbox in a week, while others can take up to a year or more. In your opinion what would you say is the contributing factor or most important factor that gets you out sooner than later?

The popular theory is that it is not the site that gets SB'd but the inbound links. It may be that "natural" growth of inbound links combined with a few other factors is all that it takes. At some point in the site's lifetime a link or two will be added which will trip the filter and the site will be released.

I doubt that anyone outside of Google fully understands how the sandbox works. This has been going on for 18 months and if it had been cracked someone would have spilled the beans by now. Whether you agree that the sandbox is the answer to spam or not you have to hand it to Google this time. They have done a good job on this, it's more complex than the Da Vinci code :o)

[zeus]

if the sandbox was a good Idea, why is there so many scraper sites in the index, those sites is the masters in getting links to them, but they seems to have a blast in the serps, I dont like the sandbox and I maybe 1 site a year, I dont create sites for others, so im not that hit by this SB, but still I think its a bad Idea because you will never see new sites in the serps, when you type a keyword in the search, then you only see the sites there have been there for years, but when you go to MSN you can see new sites.

[chodges84]

Re the duplicate content question on the irish site, it's not sandboxed, you have duplicate content, and google has detected it, that's not a sandbox matter, that's a penalty for having duplicate content.

So I've got to change the whole site around just to keep google happy :-(

One of my main competitors has sites in various currencies (about 12 different sites) and the layout and content are identical, except for the prices being in different currencies, yet they come out top of many major keywords in all the search engines for the country that web site is based in.

Whay is there no duplicate penalty in this case?

[BeeDeeDubbleU]

So I've got to change the whole site around just to keep google happy :-(

Isn't that what we all do all of the time? :)

[chodges84]

Isn't that what we all do all of the time? :)

True enough. MSN seems to like me, as does Jeeves, but Google seems to want to lock me out.

Still, I might just forget about trying to rank highly in Google for now and concentrate on my adwords campaign, it seems to be effective and is giving a good return on Investment (conversion rate of about 12%),and my MSN optimizing.

[zeus]

I just saw one of my internal pages have a PR6 and still its in the sandbox, so PR dossent matter, it looks like.

[modemmike]

For those that are in the litter box ... would you please sticky me your URL's... I have a theory I would like to work on but need some classic sandbox cases... my own site is boxed after a 301 so I'm feeling your pain, only I'm feeling it for the second time!

[mrMister]

The sad part is it appears the sandbox time period is starting to lenghten for new sites. First we heard 4 to 6 months, now we are hearing 8 to 12 months and more.

I've just had a site appear from the sandbox, exactly 6 months after its launch, so I don't think the delay is getting longer.

[JoeHouse]

mrMister

Once you came out how do your rank?

[JoeHouse]

mrMister

More questions for you. How did you know you came out of the box? What signs were there that you realized you were out?

I only ask because in a couple of weeks it will be exactly 6 months since my launch and I am hoping I get results that you speak of now.

Also did you do any tweaking while you were waiting? Such as adding pages, onsite optimization? Any reciprocal linking/or buy links etc....?

Please Advise Very Interested In comparing notes.

Thanks!

[modemmike]

Ya, quit teasing us MrMister! LOL... how cpmpetitive is your sector (e.g. how many results from Google when looking for your keywords)? What phase was the moon in, did you sacrifice something... ok, I'm kidding but really, what was the kicker or last thing you did/noticed before being released?

[BeeDeeDubbleU]

I've just had a site appear from the sandbox, exactly 6 months after its launch, so I don't think the delay is getting longer.

You can't say that based on a single experience. The delay is definitely not a fixed period. The fact that you got out after six months does not mean that this will apply to everyone. The quickest I have got out is about 4 or 5 months but I still have a site in there after 11 months.

[giggle]

I have a site that I truely believe has been in the sandbox for around 10 months or so.

I looked at the cache version of the home today and the date is 02 October.

The format of the url is www.Word1Word2Word3.co.uk, if I do a Google search for Word1 Word2 Word3 it's not found (up to 10 pages).

Seems like Google is still looking at it but hasn't indexed it fully yet.

Mick

[zeus]

I wonder is there a google image sandbox or does it go hand in hand with the normal google serps.

As a few days ago my site went from 7.000 unique to 32.000, but I can see its from the google image search, so is there a sandbox or does it just rank better now or maybe its a beginning, that also the sandbox will soon end in the normal search.

[subway]

It may be that "natural" growth of inbound links combined with a few other factors is all that it takes

It would be absolutely impossible for G to accurately determine what the "natural" growth of inbound links should be for any particular site.

There are too many sites covering too many diverse subjects, industries and issues to simply be able to run a standard formula on "accepted link growth rate", although looking at the current state of G's SERPS I wouldn't put it past them trying.

[RockyB]

"I wonder is there a google image sandbox or does it go hand in hand with the normal google serps.

As a few days ago my site went from 7.000 unique to 32.000, but I can see its from the google image search, so is there a sandbox or does it just rank better now or maybe its a beginning, that also the sandbox will soon end in the normal search."

In the last few day's I've noticed a large increase in the number of unique visitors. Turns out they're all coming in through Google image search (in he case of one guy, he hit the same page 35 times in a row :/ )

So it seems that Google regards it as fine to display my images to the world, and yet will not unsandbox my actual site :(

[modemmike]

There seems to be no direct correlation between the images search and a regular search in regards to the sandbox.

BTW, I'm still looking for people to stick me some URL's that are sandboxed so I can analyze them against my theory.

[zeus]

modemmike, but the question is, is there a image sandbox or was the boost in visits just a little update or could I expect also the sandbox in the serps to quit, I think it is a interesting question.

[roadhazard]

My site is now 16 months old. PR 3. Hoping for PR4 next update. Approx 2000 pages. The first 11 months I got ZERO Google searches in my log, except for my own searches. At 11 months, suddenly 2-3 Google searches began to appear daily in the log. I think now I get maybe 4-5 per day. I think G. has my site in the first step out of the sandbox. How long this phase will last, I don't know, maybe another year. My site is affiliate gifts. I think the site is confined to an index which is only shown briefly each day on the datacenters. I don't know if a higher PR will bump the site to a more frequently displayed index. Will let you know as things progress. How do I get enough money to live? From Adsense ads being clicked on by MSN visitors.

[UK_Web_Guy]

roadhazard

in your post you mentioned, "affilate gifts" & "adsense" -

Take a look at the posts on webmasterworld about eval.google.com

Some site will never make it out of the sandbox.

[roadhazard]

Well, my site is crawling forward...there are many affiliate sites on page one for their keywords, but those sites are like 4 years old and more... I think there is no ban on affiliate sites and certainly no ban on Adsense sites, but there IS a sandbox and once your site starts to move out of the sandbox, it is NOT an immediate jump to complete access to G. visitors. G. "rations" some hits to a new site in the first stage outside the sandbox. I am hoping that with my addition of some very good recip links with other gift sites, that I can perhaps reach a PR4 in the next PR update. G. it appears, now keeps a very heavy restraint on new sites for a LONG time. Yes, it was great to finally get out of the sandbox, but still feeling a heavy foot on my neck. Hoping the foot will ease up a bit soon and permit more G. hits. Ah, the good old days when we could jump to page one almost immediately...

[buksida]

Just read the full nine pages of this and its oh so familiar. My site is 8 months old, PR5, number one in Yahoo and MSN for desired keywords and not in the top 500 in google. A lot of the sites that are in the top 10-20 for those keywords are ones that are linking to me using them.

Someone said that some sites never get out of the sandbox and another had his site in there for 16 months. Is this true? Should I packup now and get an office job? Don't think I could put another 8 months of hard grind into this site if its going to stay buried.

[Miop]

My second site was in it for 18 months, just got out and has been immediately popped in the 'supplemental' listings. Same thing has happened for two other (different) sites I built around the same time (different IP addresses).

[BeeDeeDubbleU]

Should I packup now and get an office job? Don't think I could put another 8 months of hard grind into this site if its going to stay buried.

Don't give up. Provided that your site is clean and it has useful content it will emerge eventually.

[JoeHouse]

Same here, 10 months in Google Sandbox and no where to be found. Kicking butt in MSN and not much with Yahoo.

This is really frustrating because sites that are older than mine rank very well, however their site looks like crap. They do not provide good content for the end user but yet that are kicking my butt with sales for the simple fact that I have no rankings on Google.

I am using a little adwords but it kills me to think that I have to pay for Google ads just to get noticed.

Its tough to swallow when you have to Pay Google when you know they are treating you this way. Little or no respect. They will gladly take your money but you must wait several months and in some case over a year before they will let you out of the sandbox and play with the big boys.

Its just not right!

What can I do though, I am just a small fish in a very large ocean.

[BillyS]

I had mentioned earlier in this thread a seemingly downward spiral after jumping from 995 pages in Google's index to an inaccurate count of 9,000+.

I am seeing very favorable results on 216.239.59.99. Anyone else in that situation getting a lift on this DC?

[roadhazard]

Hi, I got a few more G. hits today than usual. Hope this keeps going... My site is about 15 or 16 months old. Personally I think as the site gets older, G. will ration more hits. How they do the rationing, who knows? It seems they put you first in an index which NO G. visitors can access. This is the sandbox. In your log there are ZERO Google hits, unless your own searches for your site. Then you go into the so-called purgatory index. This is where I have been for about 4-5 months. Two or three G. hits a day. Maybe a TINY move forward is coming, not sure yet. I will keep you posted. The wait for G. traffic is excruciating...and if I did not have a steady income from another source, I could not bear up...

[roadhazard]

Yup, a few extra G. hits came in today as well...not many, but a few more than used to arrive...