Why does Google hate new sites?

[superclown2]

Over the last few months I've launched 6 new sites. I managed to get a few back links for them all, then they all have crashed and burned afterwards. The most links was 30 for a 3-month old site, the least 4 for a one-month-old.

All the sites had unique content which has not been scraped (there wasn't time!), all are on different servers, all received backlinks from different websites. The anchor text was varied. All now lie right at the bottom of their respective SERPs after appearing on pages 1 or 2.

Does this mean that no new web sites with backlinks are going to be accepted into Google's SERPs? Does it mean that it will be so easy to destroy a competitor's new website in future?

It looks as though future new sites will have to be left with zero links for a long while, whilst hoping that a competitor doesn't arrange for some and hoping that no scrapers deliver them either.

[walkman]

Too young to be trusted is my opinion. Unless all of the sudden CNN, WSJ and tons of blogs link to you. Sort of the famous Google sandbox.

[TheMadScientist]

I have one I launched the end of Feb that's ranking fine, but it seems to be 'the exception' rather than 'the rule' ... I would guess some of it's 'niche specific' and some is site & link dependent ... I'm actually surprised it ranked as well as it did 'out of the gate', but not complaining either.

My guess would be walkman is correct about the 'lack of level of trust' in most niches, so it's probably a waiting game coupled with some consistency and stability on the site and wrt inbound links.

ADDED: My guess is user behavior when it gets 'that hour in the spotlight' probably has something to do with it too.

[limoshawn]

ADDED: My guess is user behavior when it gets 'that hour in the spotlight' probably has something to do with it too.

I also see this playing a big role, G has the ability to track user behavior better than ever and they seem to be doing a pretty good job of seeing if the end user is digging a site or not. new sites have very limited window of opportunity to make a good first impression, best bring the "a" game from the beginning, makes life much easier than trying to claw back into the game after a dismal launch.

[Pjman]

It's simple. I appreciate this aspect of Google.

I understand Google's take on this back from the days when Malware writers would make Drive-by Malware downloads in non competitive niches. Then build thousands of links to those sites and hit page 1 in days.

I would say this building trust part of the algorithm is awesome! They probably save more computers then Norton by doing this.

[Whitey]

To get sites to rank fast you have got to have trust at the time of launch. There are various methods that members can point you to here. But even then there are no guarantees.

I've seen sites rank on the first crawl in hours. Others just seems to get buried for eternity and when they do come out, they seem to struggle to achieve rankings consistantly.

How "niche" are your websites?

[arikgub]

I have lately experimented with 15-20 new sites that targeted long tail traffic with an exact long tail match in the domain name. All had a few pages of cheap low quality (but unique) content. The sites were spammy by nature, but I didn't really care, cause it was merely an experiment I was running to understand why exact match domain names are ranking so well.

To get the experiment started (to get the sites indexed) the URLs were tweeted once each. The URLs were shortened via bit.ly.

Two observations:

- Within a few weeks most sites were ranking on the 1st page with 0 backlinks

- After about 1 month, I picked 5-7 sites and built only a few (3-5) backlinks to each. The backlinks were low quality: blog comments, forum posts. After 1-2 weeks the sites with low quality sites dropped out of the first 100 results. The rest (with 0 backlinks) are still ranking just because of the domain.

Interesting, ah?

Asking whether you can harm a competitor's new site? I would say yes, you can :) Probably a short-term damage though ....

[driller41]

This is a subject close to my heart currently, I have launched a dozen new sites, these are very small 10 page sites targeting very low search volume keywords, 250 per month.

I launched these at christmas, some do ok, on page 1 after a few days - the quickness to index and rank is notable.

I point a few links - twitter is one.

They tend to bomb after 8 weeks, recovery is debateable.

Remember that these are stupidly low search volumes - there are not that many relevant sites above mine to justify a 10 page demotion.

In terms of SEO techniques, they are all pretty similiar, simple HTML code no wordpress for example.

In fact you cannot put a sheet of paper between the sites yet some will rank and some tank.

I would say there is not a simple sandbox, for example a site will stay there for x weeks, you seem to get an airing on page one for 4-8 weeks whilst they decide what to do with you then a roller coaster starts - mostly downhill at the moment, to me it makes no sense to put a site on page 25 for a low volume search term, so I am scratching my head at the moment, I will let them sit there for a while then build some links when they are 6 months old.

[superclown2]

Has anyone had any experience of sites with penalties like this coming back into the SERPs?

[SEOPTI]

With new sites I usually see a -50 penalty for the whole domain.

[driller41]

Not a fixed in stone -50 but certainly a random demotion. I read somewhere they were doing random demotions rather than fixed -50 or -100s to keep us guessing more and that is what I am seeing.

My experinces are similiar to Arikgub's above, when I point a few links to the sites all hell breaks loose.

I do not think it is link velocity, rather too many keyword links pointing to the homepage.

It does not look natural for a new site to get lots of keyworded links immediately.

I am wondering about just linking with 'click here' type links initially - of course there is much less point doing this type of linking as the ROI would be reduced.

[superclown2]

I am wondering about just linking with 'click here' type links initially - of course there is much less point doing this type of linking as the ROI would be reduced.

This is what I did on one of the sites, all the links except one were this type. It still crashed to around position 750.

[randle]

Its a "Trust" issue, and quality links are the best fix (just like they are for pretty much everything else, but thats another story). Its not hard to rank right off the bat for "red widgets", or "blue widgets", or even "free widgets", but in any sort of competitive environment ranking for the main term, "widgets" proves challenging.

Why the easy acceptance for "red widgets" and total mistrust for "widgets"? Just from a purely mechanical, algorithmic perspective I always found that to be such an oddity. Google deems the site a trusted resource for information on "red widgets" but sends it to oblivion for "widgets".

This is fairly common, so its gotta be by design, but it doesn't make a whole lot of sense.

[superclown2]

The only link containing any relevant keyphrase that I put in for one of the sites (the other three were 'click here' types) was from a top authority site for that keyphrase. The site still bombed.

It seems to me that the only way to successfully launch a new site right now would be to protect it from receiving any links from scrapers, competitors etc and the only way to do that would be to deny access to every IP range except Google's. This is like something from Alice in Wonderland.

[mirrornl]

It looks as though future new sites will have to be left with zero links for a long while, whilst hoping that a competitor doesn't arrange for some and hoping that no scrapers deliver them either.

exactly how i feel... i hardly dare to ask for a link to a new site....

in another thread someone was saying something like "don't let G. make you a chicken... and fight!"
but i hardly dare to touch my site anymore.....

[whatson]

It's the Google "Sandbox" from the Florida update. Even if you can build up a decent PR it will still be hard to rank for you main terms, it could take years, or it may never happen. You need trust from authoritative web sites to link to you.

[driller41]

It is certainly a leap to make the statement that actually adding links to a new site causes it to tank in the rankings for 3-4 months after creation.

But that is my feeling, the sites I leave alone seem to stick, the ones I create links to tend to go on a one way rollercoaster ride.

I know links from the WallStreetJournal will pby be a cure all but lets be realistic, the search terms I am looking at are 300/months exact - so it is ultra low niche type volume.

I say again that logically there is not that many sites that should rank for a 300/month keyphrase so a 10-20 page demotion is crazy, but that is what they are doing.

Interesting above SuperClown, you tried what I was going to try next - "click here" type links rather than keyword links without success.

I think I will create a few more of these sites - the writing is already done, put them up and not link at all. Let them mature to 1 year and see what happens after the year.

Perhap buying a couple of decent links might also help rather then the low quality links I am creating now.

Any other inputs?

[FranticFish]

If the links are less than super-trusted, then you get a honeymoon period then obscurity. Classic 'sandbox'.

Then over time even less than fantastic links start to gain some trust (at least they did before Panda, no very recent experience).

If you can get even one fantastic link any initial rankings are likely to stick just the way you see them from the start.

I believe Google has patents to analyse link 'spikes', so an initial spate of links then nothing looks like a marketing effort. Sustained links over time from a variety of sources looks like natural 'buzz' around something noteworthy.

[arikgub]

I think I will create a few more of these sites - the writing is already done, put them up and not link at all. Let them mature to 1 year and see what happens after the year.

I don't think it is a good idea because what needs to age are the LINKS.

[CenSin]

Ihave one site with only 1 page, and it rank #1 or sometime #2 in 25 millions page result.

Talking about quality SERP?

[Perren]

Interesting thread. I have similar experiences: New site + 10-15 links first 6 months = Penalty.

The penalty seems to lift after 6 to 12 months in some cases. Deleting the links (ALL) has helped 1-2 times now actually.