Domain Age vs. Page Age

[bw3ttt]

I have a domain from 1999 which has been indexed since 1999 or early 2000. I recently added a lot of new content and it ranks horribly.

My question is the following:

Although the site itself is very old and has been indexed for a long time, are the newly indexed pages subject to the probationary "sandbox" period you would expect to see with a brand new domain, or should any page on this domain jump right in and rank as well as it ever will without changing the content or adding new IBLs?

[edited by: Robert_Charlton at 10:39 pm (utc) on Nov. 2, 2008]
[edit reason] fixed typo [/edit]

[topranker]

I think new folders created may suffer from the probationary sandbox but not new pages. (unless those new pages are in the new folders)

Lee

[Quadrille]

SEs look t pages, not sites, so each page will rank on its merits.

Having said that, a new page on a stable, indexed site, has a good chance of being indexed, and will benefit from the pre-existing strength of the site.

If your new content is not doing well, there's plenty of possible reasons; are you providing unique new content; is it on the same topic as the rest of the site? Does each new page have a unique title and meta description? Are the pages of substantial length, and not dwarfed by a great weight of 'shared content'?

These and plenty of other issues can lead to what I call sick site syndrome.

But new pages on an existing site are not usually subject to the 'sandbox effect'.

But how well do the 'old' pages do? And what exactly do you mean by 'ranking horribly'?

[bw3ttt]

The domain is not flagged for having non-unique content. The index ranks well and has ranked well for many years. I'm selling widgets myself and added new products, each on a new page, but they're being outranked for my target keywords by spam and cheesy B.A.N.S. sites without a lick of unique content on them. The new pages have only been in the index for a few days. My IBLs are few but solid (1 from yahoo directory and 1 from Dmoz). My concern is that by changing the content I'll being fixing something that isn't broken.

So you haven't noticed a gradual effect of rising in the rankings after being in the index for a while? If not it seems I have work to do.

[Quadrille]

The new pages have only been in the index for a few days.

Ah!

Almost certainly no need to worry. Rankings, by nature, are relative, so it can take a while before SEs can give accurate ranking. Once upon a time, I'd say one 'spidering cycle' - so that all relevant pages have had the chance to be reassessed and compared to yours. These days, it's all quicker, less predictable, and varies much more from niche to niche (and site to site).

But if you've added "a lot of new content" (ie more than usual), then it's reasonable that SEs take a little time to digest it. Can be more than a few days. Don't worry. :)

[edited by: Quadrille at 3:19 am (utc) on Nov. 3, 2008]

[bw3ttt]

Thanks a lot Quadrille..