The reverse sandbox

positive indexing for initial period

[reprint]

I experienced what i would call appropriate ranking for a new site (300-400) for about 3 months on google and then almost all the pages went supplemental. I have seen other posts on this here and on other forums and for sites with decent original copy not MFA.
Suggestions I have heard so far range from penalties, not enough links, not enough PR to "benefit of the doubt" period ending.

I would expect google to look for normal development in links, content etc and flag anything that looked abnormal. However if the "benefit of the doubt" theory is correct, this would imply google is allowing sites a grace period and if you do not meet their criteria after that grace period you are dropped. This would seem to also imply that sites should garner high quality links in a 3 month period and have large numbers of good copy. This seems to fit with comments about taking one of your other high PR sites (if you have one) and linking to your new site to get it going. Overall this process doesn't make a lot of sense to me as copy and links would normally be gathered over time. Further dropping a site into supplementals hinders the ability to gain links and blocks normal development and maturing of a site. This seems to run counter to the "do no evil" philosophy and encourages blackhat techniques or other schemes during that "grace period". Hindering new sites from developing normally by using a "grace period" and supplementals doesnt seem to encourage good and vital growth of new content on the web.

Anyone else experienced this? Any thoughts or even better any facts? :) any experiences with the site coming back out of supplementals over time as part of new website development?
What should the normal development amd maturing of a new website look like?

thanks

[Quadrille]

Further dropping a site into supplementals hinders the ability to gain links and blocks normal development and maturing of a site. This seems to run counter to the "do no evil" philosophy and encourages blackhat techniques or other schemes during that "grace period". Hindering new sites from developing normally by using a "grace period" and supplementals doesnt seem to encourage good and vital growth of new content on the web.

If google "drops a site into supplementals" for sheer spite, you'd have a point about the 'do no evil'; but without evidence to support such an accusation, it's probably best to separate out 'what they do' form attributing motive - it only confuses the issue.

As it happens, there is often a simple reason for 'supplementals, which can be sorted by the webmaster, so it's probably not helpful to go looking for witch hunts :)

Search these forums for supplementals, and you'll see much good information on why it happens - and how to prevent it from happening.

It might be useful to think about it this way: Google's responsibility to its users (searchers) is their driving force; new sites have to convince Google that they are as good or better than other sites. the benefit of the doubt probably doesn't come into it. And I doubt a 'grace period for new sites' is a useful concept for searchers looking for quality sites.

There's been a fair amount of discussion on Google's stakeholders; that's worth reading, too.

[reprint]

Ok point taken. Now i reread my post it doesn't read how i meant it. I would expect a new site to be ranked low by google until it proves itself. Thats how it should be. I have just seen a lot of reports of new sites being ranked for about 3 months and then dropped to supplementals. I wondered if this is a normal practice. From your post, it sounds like the webmasters have just done something inadvertently on the website to cause this to happen. Still its frustrating to have to blindly or semi-blindly guess what this is.

thanks for the reply

[Quadrille]

Most often it's something site-specific ... but in the first few months of its Google life, all bets are off. You do your best, then live with the frustration :)