Forum Moderators: open
I feel very strongly that until we have a good grasp on why it exists, it will be very hard to beat.
I don't buy the explanation that it's intended to be a method of stopping spam. Why? One, there's too much collateral damage it is doing. Two, if you accept the 80/20 principle (20% of spammers are doing 80% of the spamming), and you realize that there are multiple ways already of beating the sandbox that all of those spammers are aware of, it doesn't make sense anymore.
So, why does the sandbox exist?
The most obvious effect of the sandbox is that it prevents new domains (not pages) from ranking for any relatively competitive term. So, start thinking like a search engine - what would be the benefit of this?
He doesn't, it just looked like the discussion was going to get off the tracks and I wanted to put it back on track.
>> I have about 10 sites waiting to rank.
Now that's where we probably differ. If by "waiting to rank" you mean waiting to get PR, I have some sites I consider to still be in the sandbox, yet they already have (visible) PR. And I have a few other sites which I consider to be in the sandbox, with no visible PR yet (created after June 23, the last visible PR update), yet they already show backlinks. I also know from threads here that many other webmasters are in a similar situation, and not because they are bad SEOs (since their old sites, optimized similarly to their new ones and with similar links, do very well..).
Supplemental Index = Reality
1. It appears in the search results labeled as such = tangible evidence.
2. It has been verified by Google as being a separate index = tangible evidence.
3. All those who have seen the tangible evidence agree that it exists.
Separate "Sandbox Index" = One Person's Theory
1. There is nothing appearing in the index or elsewhere as such = no evidence.
2. No such thing has been verified by Google or anyone else = no evidence.
3. No one has seen any tangible evidence, nor does anyone else agree that it exists, or have any reason to.
How about if the hijacking into debate about erroneous assumptions stops, and we have the courtesy to get back to the original poster's intention and topic:
Why does the Google Lag Exist?
That way we can continue the discussion without a mod or admin needing to close the whole thing down because it got hijacked WAY off topic. And also so that people can benefit instead of having empty arguments about something which not ONE person agrees exists.
Right, back to WHY theories
New Website owners tell Google EXACTLY the words they need to be ranked on to make money laying them out very clearly in Title tags H1 tags etc (whole industry devoted to this called SEO)
Google says thanks for that Info (like taking candy off a baby) so now we know, not only what you want, but what not to let you have .... unless of course you pay (Click that handy link to the right of the search results you are never ever going to get)
Yes I know we won your hearts and lots of you Webmaster put up links to us for free but things have changed and we have sorta got a monopoly on search and you need us a whole lot more than we need you.
Solution, don't tell Google what you want and everything will be OK.....
Still working on finer details of that work around ...
Just a theory, but suppose for some reason (too many new links, not enough time?) it now takes Google a looong time (as in months) to get around to a link to calculate accurately how much PR it passes?
So for a new link Google knows the link is there (hence it may show up in a new site's backlinks), it may guess how much PR it passes (hence the new site may eventually get PR), but since it is a guess (for a new link) the link has a mark by it that identifies it as a guess and so the link doesn't really count for competitive searches. Once Google gets around to check the link thoroughly and the PR it passes is no longer an initial guess, it starts counting the link as any other link and you may rank for more competitive searches.
New sites of course only have new links to them, hence they can be found only/mostly for non competitive searches.
So why do new internal pages rank (as in placement, not PR) well? Maybe in these cases Google considers its guess not to be a guess...
What corraboration do I have for this theory? Very little, except that I have seen a lag effect happen in the other direction as well - it took Google three months to realize that a site has lost some of its more important/influential links, and so the site continued for 3 months to rank extremely well in the SERPs when it shouldn't have any longer...
I hope my encouragement hasn't made you think that the theory is fact Renee.:)
As Mfishy and others have said PR and backlinks are no indication of a site being in or out of the sandbox.
Does this mean its back to the drawing board?
People would do better to think of it as an algo, like Florida on steoroids, with tightened dupe filters also. :-)
People would do better to think of it as an algo, like Florida on steoroids, with tightened dupe filters also
I've got a couple of sites that took a Florida hit that exhibit the exact same symptoms as sandboxed sites. No duplicates* involved, but I've believed all along that it's in the number and types of links that were and are still lacking for the sites.
Even aside from those, which is purely anecdotal, there seem to be some kind of connections and correlations between this phenomenon and the Florida phenomenon.
Added:
<side issue>
* While there were no duplications, there *was* a problem with the site, being done in Dreamweaver with a template run through, with the pages being properly dealt with after the very page tops, which were all identical, including the header graphic linked to the homepage with the same anchor text throughout.
I've seen this same phenomenon many times since then, with many sites. This is not a sandbox issue, but it is a very real issue with many templated sites or pages with headers or page-tops all identical.
</side issue>
