Is the Sandbox back?

[cabbie]

Around 2005, google decided new sites or sites with new pages shouldn't rank without some sort of delay imposed of them, even if the site had enough signals to be ranking higher.
It was called at the time a "sandbox"

Is anyone experiencing that now?
An inordinate time to rank where you think your page should be ranking.
It's a explanation for what I am experiencing with new pages on well respected sites.
They are just not getting any Google love for main kws, though they will rank for any exact phrases from the pages.

Should I be taking this personally, or are others having the same experience?

[keyplyr]

Wouldn't call it the Samdbox since back then that was a specific duration applied across all new sites. Getting links too fast would also achieve similar outcome for new pages.

IMO it's just more difficult nowadays for new pages to get ranking even on an established site.

Insite linking and backlinks from Social Media are easy to do. The Social Media backlinks might generate additional backlinks.

[RedBar]

or are others having the same experience?

Yep, for at least a year or more, heck, it might even be two years now. I've seen it across multiple sites with some taking a minimum 6 months to start moving up the SERPs.

[tangor]

Sitting in front of a screen, creating pages and posting them to the wild seems likely a lonely occupation. however There are a billion others doing exactly the same thing EVERY MINUTE and that makes for a lot of pages out there. A LOT. All trying for the same 10 spots on page one.

The competition is incredibly fierce over the last two years and will only get worse unless something significant changes things.

It is the nature of the beast that the larger and more complex, the slower and longer things will take. And if something old has the same answers as the something new, there's no hurry to change things.

Difficult to be patient. The magic bullet is out there, keep searching. Crossing fingers and praying sometimes helps.

[martinibuster]

No. Not back.

PBN people are talking about it though...

Are you using social media and getting some real (not fake PBN) links to the pages or home pages?

Did you set it up with GSC?

[ken_b]

I'm a little foggy today ... what is PBN?

[martinibuster]

what is PBN?

Personal Blog Network.
Link selling for newb affiliate marketers who have little idea of how search engines work. The kind of people who believe in painfully outdated concepts like Anchor Text Ratios. They're passing around ideas that expired in 2006. The only veterans I see in that game are the ones selling the links.

The good ones are developing their links on the down low without public discussion or sharing with the newbs.

[cabbie]

Thanks for all the contributions
I'm backing myself that I know my market and competition, and it's not competition suppressing my pages or new sites.
I don't have any trouble tweaking old established pages to move Google's needle.
GSC and PBN are a little esoteric for me, but my link development is sound (if old) and does not consist of cajoling, pestering, suggesting, trading or buying them. Nor am I into designing anchor text :)
Hmm my page titles are probably a little too perfect though. :(

Be great to hear from anyone who been able to get immediate results or within 2 months for new pages or new sites.

Cheers

[aristotle]

keyplyr wrote:
Wouldn't call it the Samdbox since back then that was a specific duration applied across all new sites.

keyplyr is correct. The old sandbox was applied to entire new sites, not new pages on old sites.

There was an old SEO adage that Google would wait to see if a new site's domain name was re-newed at the end of the first year before allowing it to move up in the rankings. I actually saw that appear to happen with one of my sites back in 2005, but won't be surprised if somebody here jumps in and disputes it.

[cabbie]

My site just popped out of the sand box a few days ago. Looks permanent.

[tangor]

Kudos. Wait for the next algo change. :)

[smilie]

@martinibuster: people who believe in painfully outdated concepts like Anchor Text Ratios. They're passing around ideas that expired in 2006.

What is a penguinized site? Let's define, shall we.

If you have a statistically too large number of money anchor KW links pointing back at your page, you are guaranteed to get hit.

Unless you are too big to fail (that can do whatever), white-listed, Amazon size, or have 1 mln+ backlinks, at which point yo are too big to fail.

I can take YOUR website, or your client's website and given that either has less than , say 10K backlinks profile, nuke a page on it out of Google very cheaply to prove a point, if you'd like. Or PM me, I'll tell you how, you can test yourself on a throw-away site.

>> They are just not getting any Google love for main kws

Of course, main KWs may be strong enough that there's already millions of pages the site competes against. With billions of possible links. Hence the possible after effect.

[mandeep_w]

No, it's not back. Google webmasters have not officially announced.

[engine]

FYI Google's Gary Illyes recently said "We don't have a sandbox" [twitter.com...]

[aristotle]

What about the old "honeymoon" period for newly-launched websites, in which google would give them a few weeks of high rankings and traffic to give them a good start? This definitely did exist at one time, and I saw its beneficial effect on all of the sites I launched during the 2004-2007 time period. But I don't know if google still does it or not.

[smilie]

@aristotle, I am seeing honeymoon. The new site rising up quickly for a month, then gone or devalued well below older sites. Can only vouch for a 5-10 page "brochure" type sites as that's the only ones I tried in enough quantity to see the pattern.

I have tons of free domains left from my domainer days and occasionally an idea comes up worth launching a tiny brochure site to try it out. But lately it's less and less as Google knocks them out quickly probably in the same swoop it knocks out churn-and-burn spam sites. Except spam sites you know would have different pattern, like 10K backlinks in one month.... obvious things.

There seems to be a loss of generational knowledge in Google, as things that were obvious that they did not work 2006 are now tried again. I know that they don't hire people with GPA lower than "very bright" and what they need to hire is a few Black Hatters who would be shutting down their ideas that did not work. Obviously black hats of that caliber they need, I really doubt , have a 3.9 GPA and were good in school. Just a hunch.

So as that generation who built stuff in 2000th left, I think G is now run by millennials who are very bright but have this disconnect with 10-15 years ago. So , we may be back in Kansas, a shinier one with mobile, but still in Kansas.

[RedBar]

But I don't know if google still does it or not.

I've launched a brand new 500+ page site on a new .com domain name today so we'll see what happens!

[3zero]

I guess everyone has a different experience of the sandbox but my experience with it is that it's actually "Search Terms" that are sandboxed not whole websites and yes its still happens today.

[Gsport]

I personally wouldn't ever launch a site on a new domain
I would build something same context and come back in a year or two
I know its not an option for many but far better off buying a domain with a defunct website especially
one thats been slapped and the owner chucked