Links And The Evil Box

[Boogalou]

So I made a new site a couple months ago. Have been slowly adding good content and links just like I do for every site I create. I was suprised that for the first two months I received really good traffic from Google. Site didn't appear to be sandboxed at all.

Then seemingly arbitrarily my site dissapeared into the evil box. Not supplemental, still in the index, but all terms penalized heavily. Normally my sites seem to immediately hit the box, or never do.

Has this happened to anyone before? Is it possible for Google to one day go, "Oh wait, I forgot to put you in the box, BAD WEBSITE BAD!"

All I can figure is that I added too many links within too short a time period?

Boog

[Gissit]

How many inbound links have you added and where were they from?

Just a hunch but a lot of links from directories, forum sigs, exchanges etc would indicate someone promoting a site and not natural linking. I am about to release another site (well another month or two) and I think I have a plan to stay out this time but time will tell.

I may be wrong but is it only certain search terms that you have dropped rankings for, usually the most common (two-three word) ones?

[tedster]

Related thread:

Filters exist - the Sandbox doesn't. How to build Trust. [webmasterworld.com]

[steveb]

It sounds like you are describing a data refresh rankings drop, which effects lots of sites.

The sandbox is a new site filter. Google has a gajillion other filters too.

[tedster]

The reason I suspect a new site trust issue is this: "for the first two months I received really good traffic from Google."

I've seen that happen a lot -- ranking right from the start, but then "sandboxed".

I added too many links within too short a time period?

Google is looking specifically for links that do not seem to be added by you. If no one else wants to "vote for" your site except you after a while, this can trip a kind of "low trust" filter.