Who says the sandbox doesn't exist?

[JS_Harris]

I'm posting this because I find it extremely amusing. I'm not a rookie and I know to be patient, if I was a rookie I'd be crying :)

I have a 21 day old site that does not rank for ANYTHING. No big deal there, not even a surprise really but...

- an "about" page on a social network site I signed up to ranks #3 for one of my sites main keywords... yes, it's my account, but still no love. score one for the social site.

- another "about" page on a seperate social site I signed up to ranks #1 for the exact title of my new site, again MY site doesn't rank at all. Nope, no love.

- I've written 19 articles, each with unique titles but NONE of them rank at all for the exact phrase (nobody ranks for the identical titles). Still no love x19.

- My would be prime competitor has noticed my site somehow and mentioned it on his as an aside. His article about content unrelated to my site but which mentions my site ranks #2 in Google for not one but two of my more important keywords. Love? nada

My new site ranks for absolutely nothing in the top 100 that I want it to. I have another site very similar in terms of design and SEO that has a lot of page one results so it's nothing in the code...

The kicker - the privacy policy is ranked #1 (primary keyword+privacy policy) and it's the only page currently using "nofollow"!

I'm going to bed, when I wake up it will all be better right? heh... I forgot how much fun a new site could be.

[jimbeetle]

I don't think anybody has said that something that looks like the sandbox doesn't exist. In fact, back a bit after the phenomena was first being discussed here, Matt Cutts did say something along the lines that G found a certain set of circumstances that made it appear that some new sites were being "sandboxed".

We don't know exactly what those factors are, but one factor I'm pretty sure plays a large part is backlinks. How many backlinks -- and what's their quality -- does the new site have?

[idolw]

heh, yes, new sites are funny.
as a boring man i prefer no fun with old domains.

[jomaxx]

It's just been 3 weeks. The classic "sandbox" lasted many months, even up to a year. Google has gotten really good at indexing new pages of existing sites within days or even hours, but you have to be reasonable in your expectations when it's a brand new domain.

[randle]

Our experience has been the Sandbox was an unnatural side effect of Google jacking up the importance of the Trust element of the back link profile. They eventually turned it down quite a bit and the box doesn’t appear quite as harsh as it once did. Best plan of attack is to avoid it in the first place, and that’s done by acquiring high quality links right in the beginning; don't delay.

[Miamacs]

sandbox = low trust

It's a side-effect not some practice or script.

get links from high trust sites.

21 days?

...

just so you know, trust isn't updated as often as pagerank.

[brinked]

JS_Harris,

This is very common for new domains. When a new domain goes through a phase that you are describing I call this the "evaluation period" otherwise known as the "sandbox". Call it whatever you like, but something does exist and it makes total sense. Google doesn't trust your site because it doesn't know much about it because it is new, so what it does is place you in this holding area and monitors what kind of backlink activity occurs during that time. My best advice to you is this..whatever your doing as far as link building goes..keep at it and be consistent...If google sees your domain has stopped receiving backlinks it will realize the backlinks it once did receive may have been artificial. As far as google goes, new domains are guilty unless proven innocent.

[JS_Harris]

All valid points. What I find amusing most is that I now have to fight to earn the #1 spot for my site title from the about page of my own social media profile on another site.

My "new" site looks like it's spamming someone elses content because of those social media profiles. Gettin a jump on those profiles was a no-no.

[Miamacs]

I don't suppose your site title is a made up word, but even if it is, a mention of that word on a well linked, long time ( or even authority ) site with a couple of millions of backlinks goes a long way against a brand new domain.

btw, there is no 'evaluation period' so to speak of... since this isn't some time limit. Better call it 'evaluation' ... period.
*grin*

The only factor in which time plays a role is that high quality links don't start with their full value, they reach it over some 6 to 12 months. If you stop juggling with like 3 quality inbounds, and rather get like... 30... ( or 303 ) the 'link history' part of the trust calculations won't matter much. Keep overwhelming Google's senses and you'll get your reward within the first month or so.

The only kind of websites for which the 'sandbox effect' plays a huge role are those that get only a few quality links and then - since they won't gain any again, ever - have to sit out that 12 months so that the 'link history' kicks in, meaning the age of links allows you to get the 'full' value. But that's borderline sites with too few links to compete.

...

get more links

er... no.

get more quality links

( if you really have to wonder, and don't dare to ask links from authority sites, go for those that come up for overly generic 1, 2 word searches, and have a lower PR, fewer links than their competition. if you absolutely need a *rough* guide to 'trust', this is it )