Does the Google Sandbox exist?

[pkKumar]

My site (little more than 1 year old) was on 1st page for target keywords recently but from last week onwards its nowhere in even top 20 pages for some important keywords. The site is definitely not banned as i have checked by site:myurl.com and there is no message in GWT also. Have my site gone to google sandbox. Is sandbox really exist. If it exists then what causes the site to put into sandbox. The only thing i might have done wrong in recent days is to create some back links mainly in yahoo questions and answers. Is that a negative approach.

[netmeg]

I would call that potentially a negative approach. Pretty much any linking you put into motion yourself is gonna get you knocked down these days.

[Str82u]

I wish the sandbox did exist but as far as I can tell pages hit the web pretty fast these last couple of years.

[Kendo]

Yep. You don't even have to submit your site to get included. All you need to do is mistakenly type the URL into the search bar instead of the address bar.

[pkKumar]

Yep. You don't even have to submit your site to get included. All you need to do is mistakenly type the URL into the search bar instead of the address bar.

I have no idea what you are talking and how its related to the current issue.

[Str82u]

I have no idea what you are talking and how its related to the current issue

That is to say that we don't see that the sandbox exists as we understood it.

Do this: Search for your keyword with 100 results, go to the last page... you on it? Depending on who you talk to, that's a sandbox of sorts.

[pkKumar]

Do this: Search for your keyword with 100 results, go to the last page... you on it? Depending on who you talk to, that's a sandbox of sorts.

Ok, can you tell me what's the best possible way to get back way to regain keyword ranking.
Thanks

[Str82u]

There could be several reasons a page ends up there but if you think it was the Q&A links, can you get remove them yourself?

[pkKumar]

There could be several reasons a page ends up there but if you think it was the Q&A links, can you get remove them yourself?

No the questions has been resolved after that editing of deleting is not allowed. Is there any other way.

[netmeg]

If it were that easy, everyone would do it. You need to look at the pages ranking above you, and figure out what they may have that you don't.

[pkKumar]

If it were that easy, everyone would do it.

That's good one.

You need to look at the pages ranking above you, and figure out what they may have that you don't.

The problem is not the pages that are above me but my own pages which were on 1st and 2nd pages till last week are nowhere in the picture right now.

[jimbeetle]

How old is the site in question?

[pkKumar]

How old is the site in question?

just a little more than a year. 1 year 2 months exact.

[pkKumar]

The most difficult thing is to find the exact cause of keyword ranking drop. I am pretty sure that its not Back Links, i guess google will devalues the links which comes from directories, forum or yahoo answers, rather than taking an action.
The only thing that can go bad is the content of the site. Generally my content writing starts from getting most of the data from google search only, then i would edit the relevant data, write in my words and also adding own points also. I guess it is acceptable as many would follow the same approach for content development.
Also the worrying point is my competitors approach, i.e copying content from other sites, creating pages with similar content with just changing a specific state or country. Still there is no action from google on that site. The only difference is their site is 5 years old and mine is 1 only.

[jimbeetle]

If the site is over a year old then it's not a matter of a new site falling back to where it should be.

Other than the somewhat sketchy links you built, what is the rest of the site's backlink profile like?

And going by your content generation description, Google just might not think it's unique enough.

[pkKumar]

Other than the somewhat sketchy links you built, what is the rest of the site's backlink profile like?

Nothing much. Actually the quantity of mentioned backlinks are also small but the problem is there are no quality backlinks. But so for other sites on the same niche.

And going by your content generation description, Google just might not think it's unique enough.

But the same process is implemented by competitor, i will say more worst. But still google like that site.

[jimbeetle]

But still google like that site.

For now, until something better comes along.

[plc90210]

Sandbox applies to new sites, it shouldn't be an issue for sites more than 1 year old.

[jimbeetle]

Sandbox applies to new sites...

I guess we never got around to answering the original question, "Does the Google Sandbox exist?"

The short answer is no.

A bit longer take is that as discussion of a sandbox took hold some years ago, Matt Cutts looked into it. He found that while there was not a "sandbox," there was a certain confluence of algorithms or filters that might look like a site was sandboxed.

A much longer discussion from back in 2006: Filters exist - the Sandbox doesn't. How to build Trust. [webmasterworld.com]

Ya' know, it's kind of scary that something that has been debunked almost seven years ago is still asked about today.

[plc90210]

"He found that while there was not a "sandbox," there was a certain confluence of algorithms or filters that might look like a site was sandboxed."

That's what it means to be sandboxed - to trigger algorithmic age/spam filters. I guess it's just a matter of semantics.

[TheOptimizationIdiot]

Yeah, pretty silly to be arguing about whether there's a "sandbox" for sites in some niches, since it's been confirmed although "not for everyone" and not a "specific delay" set in the algo by Google. Even Barry Schwartz has reported it as Matt Cutts confirming it exists.

Matt Cutts Confirms Sandbox Exists for Some Industries

[seroundtable.com...]

Original Thread Here:
[webmasterworld.com...]

So, for some sites, in effect there IS a sandbox.

The above is quoted by a number of fairly authoritative sources even before the 2006 so called "debunkment".

I guess if you really want to argue it's filters causing sites in some areas to not rank initially and those are something different than what people call a sandbox, then you can, but it seems a bit like semantic silliness to say filters keeping a site(s) from ranking initially (something keeping a site from ranking initially is what sandboxed is generally understood to mean) in some niches is different than saying a site is "sandboxed" or is different than saying there is a Google sandbox for some sites.

Maybe we should technically add "effect" after the word "sandbox" to quash hair splitting over semantics, but even that seems a bit like unnecessary silliness to me since whatever the mechanism (filters, penalties, delays in trust being awarded, whatever) that keeps some sites from ranking initially has been confirmed and is exactly what people are are generally talking about when they say "sandbox".

[tedster]

I agree. The only difference between the actual situation and a true sandbox is that escape from the "sandbox" condition does not happen after a specific amount of time. That idea was a source of confusion that initially led to the semantic hairsplitting.

[CainIV]

I simply call it trustbox.

[Str82u]

In an effort to look more detached from reality - I seem to remember visiting and using the REAL G sandbox site back in 2004/2005 when they DID have separate directory that included new sites to see how they did and cull out bad sites before they hit the live directory; a webmaster could see if they were at least in the sandbox to know they would be coming out in the live results soon.

Seriously, hope someone else remembers this (it wasn't an April Fool's gag either). Also, as I remember it, it wasn't public for long and G started to say they moved away from the practice of two seperate directories for that purpose (sandboxing) and soon after the subdomain went 404. The subdomain was something simple like scratch.google or maybe even just sandbox.google

[TheOptimizationIdiot]

I remember something about that too, but thought it was the related to the supplemental index, not "the sandbox" specifically. (Been a long time, so I could be incorrect.)

[tedster]

The only thing I can remember that comes close was the Supplemental Index - is that it?

[Str82u]

@tedster - could be, as I mentioned it was a big deal when they announced it was there and you could search it yourself, but after few months or less it was 404 or redirected... it's been several years now and I only remember that that version looked just like the standard SERPs without ads.