Has the Sandbox been Abandoned?

[phantombookman]

Sorry to start a new thread but felt it may warrant it.

I have been posting in favour of the Sandbox's existence and I have 2 sites firmly stuck in the sand!

However...
2 weeks ago I registered a brand new domain and started to build a new site. I knew it would be at least 6 months before anything happened but..

This morning it entered the index for the first time - straight on page one for a one word search (a town, granted only 194,000 matches) but none the less the last 2 sites still cannot achieve similar results after 6 months.

Also preliminary early pages ranking very well
The site has only one incoming link, no adsense, banners or anything, vanilla html etc.

Built as per my last 2 sites so clearly something has changed!
Regards and hope to all
Rod

[Powdork]

I agree that 32000 is uncompetitive, but a million is a bit high. I have a site in a local wedding niche for which the results are under 200,000 for my region weddings. Still, a referral from one of my forms can result in several to twenty thousand dollars of revenue and there is quite a bit of interest. It's limited by the number of brick and mortar businesses, however. The competition is fierce at the top, and often spearheaded from where you would least expect it.
Fortunately, this is not a sandboxed site.

[phantombookman]

Is there a difference in the subject-matter of the two sites? For example, is one about [V]iagra and the other about your pet cat?

No very similar, content, design and layout. The only difference is one has quite a few outgoing links and the other none.

I firmly believe content and how competetive a term is to be largely irrelevant. I work with terms that range from 20 million returns to 200k and see no difference. Of course it is harder to rank higher for more popular terms but that has no relevance to the sandbox.

I had one site return immediately #3 but was, and still is, fimly in the sandbox

[spiral]

The whole sandbox theory sounds like vodoo to me, I put up new sites all the time, some rank well, some do not.

[BeeDeeDubbleU]

Welcome to Webmasterworld Spiral but I can assure you that this is not Voodoo. You should read some of the other threads about it. It is very real even if a few people in this forum claim that they can beat it.

[muzzy]

i agree with phantombookman - at least in my case anyway that the number of matches should be irrelevant if the sandbox exists, be it 1000 or 1 million, if the sandbox exists then surely you shouldnt be found anywhere?

[joeking]

I think someone made a very good point earlier in this thread.

Any sandbox effect is more likely related to number of searches conducted rather than results returned.

I'm not sure there is a specific sandbox though. Like others, I launch sites all the time. Some rank well, others don't. Older sites ebb and flow too in the rankings.

Big algo changes may make it look like a sandbox is in place, but it may well be voodoo.

As I've said before, it's often the quality of returned search results that puzzle me more than why Google thinks my site is in the top ten or 234th.

[MHes]

After looking at a number of new sites this year and ones launched recently, I have concluded there is no sandbox as such. Links take a month or so to provide full pr effect, but apart from that it is pure optimisation skills required.

You should be able to rank well within 6 months for many phrases but this all depends on how good your competitors are and the sector you are in. You are just not going to displace equally well optimised sites that are established.

I now believe members who say they can beat sandbox, because in reality there is no sandbox. Its all down to seo work, and there are some very clever seo people out there.

Sandbox = poor optimisation

Sandbox is where the innocent live.

[BeeDeeDubbleU]

I am innocent. (Anyone else care to admit their innocence?)

[JudgeJeffries]

I'm also innocent, but only since Feb 04. Did the law change at that point 'cos before then I was guilty as sin?
If you follow the guidelines and are still nailed then its a deliberate attempt to keep you out other-wise known as a sandbox. If you found a tiny loophole and squeeezed through the cracks do you call that SEO or luck. It may well be that big G intended us all to be playing with sand but didnt quite make it watertight enough. I'd still call it a sandbox as its where most post Feb sites still reside. If there's some magical panecea to extricate yourself from it then sure as hell one of the macho guys or gals here couldnt have resisted blabbing about the detail..no one has.

[Powdork]

I now believe members who say they can beat sandbox, because in reality there is no sandbox.

Without going into the logic of that argument, What a bunch of hoooey!
I can guarantee you that the 400 or so pages in front of me are not all better optomised and definitely not a better result for the search. Maybe five could fit that description, but Google didn't think so when the same content, navigation structure, and backlink structure ranked #1 on a different domain seven months ago. The only difference is that it is now on a new domain.

[HayMeadows]

Its all down to seo work, and there are some very clever seo people out there.

I'll take that as a compliment, thank you!

[JudgeJeffries]

Powdork I totally agree. My experience entirely. I wish the others would cut the crap, stop blowing their own trumpets and come up with positive sensible suggestions on how to squeeze through those cracks if in reality those options exist.

[Spine]

I also agree fully with Powdork. To say that sites at the top are better optimized or have somehow deserved/earned the place is to admit you know nothing of the terms I do searches on and compete in.

Many are irrelevant, many are spam, and many are both.

The sites clustered on the first few pages USED to be the deserving, but now I'd say it's about 30%, the rest is useless.

[Fieldingv]

"Sandbox = poor optimisation"

This statement is incorrect based on all of the research I've done. The behavior known as the "sandbox" is not due to "poor optimization". I have seen large amounts of evidence that prove this.

[siteseo]

How many people, if they REALLY knew the way off the beach, would publicize it here? That would just:
* elevate the amount of competition
* force Google to dramatically adjust again

I do believe in the sandbox, and am equally frustrated by the seeming inconsistencies in the G algorithm. But at the end of the day I have to acknowledge that G has to grow and change to outpace the spammers (of which I am NOT one). Still, it is unfortunate that so many "innocents" are getting caught in the box.

For myself, every single website I have ever worked on ranks within the top 3 for it's primary, extremely competitive keywords in MSN Beta, so I know I'm doing something right - at least in MSN's eyes.

Don't look for someone here to lay it all out for you. Hints have been dropped - experiment for yourself. Think outside the box. "If I were G, what would I do?"
I don't know a definitive, all-cases solution to the sandbox, but if I did I wouldn't publish it for the whole world to see, especially if it was something that I would reasonably expect others to be able to figure out for themselves.

And if it is a Google problem, they'll get it worked out eventually, or go the way of AltaVista (I remember making good money on their stock several years back :-)