Why arent we showing?

[metaphase]

We have launched a site recently, and are already listed in Google although have no PR.

We come up top in Google if we type in our main keyword and company name together, which isnt an amazing achievement but proves we are listed

However we used 2 tools to see what our ranking is for our main keyword only (even if it was very low we wanted to find this out as a starting point to improve upon) and we found we werent listed at all, which we though was strange

Surely we should come up in the results, even if it is hundreds or thousands down the line?

(the software scans the natural search results, but stops before the "click here to see omitted entries that are very similar", but we obvioulsy wouldnt be in those extra results)

why are we listed if we include the company name, but not at all for the keyword only?

[AussieWebmaster]

We have launched a site recently, and are already listed in Google although have no PR.

We come up top in Google if we type in our main keyword and company name together, which isnt an amazing achievement but proves we are listed

However we used 2 tools to see what our ranking is for our main keyword only (even if it was very low we wanted to find this out as a starting point to improve upon) and we found we werent listed at all, which we though was strange

Surely we should come up in the results, even if it is hundreds or thousands down the line?

(the software scans the natural search results, but stops before the "click here to see omitted entries that are very similar", but we obvioulsy wouldnt be in those extra results)

why are we listed if we include the company name, but not at all for the keyword only?
Welcome to the sandbox.... try doing a little reading here about the Google Sandbox - do a search and you will get a lot of threads to read.

[metaphase]

thanks, although I understand what the sandbox effect is, why would it then work for some keywords and not others? This is whats happening (obvioulsy we arent ebay but it serves as a good example)

keywords:

online auction ebay - appear top
online auction - appear nowhere


where all optimisation and IBL efforts are focussed around "online auction"

why would the sandbox cause this?

[AussieWebmaster]

PM me the domain name and I will have a look for you.

[AussieWebmaster]

Characteristics of a sandboxed site:

* site is on a new domain launched since around March 2004
* targeted keyword(s) are moderate to highly competitive
* most of the sites pages are indexed by Google
* Googlebot crawls the site regularly
* ranks well for non-competitive keywords
* ranks well in Yahoo! and MSN
* ranks well in Google for an allinanchor:keyword(s) search
* has at least a reasonable PR and a good number of backlinks
* site has reasonably good optimization (eg keyword density and placement), but its not over done.
* absence of anything known to get a penalty or ban in Google
* the site does not rank in at least the top 500 or so for its main keyword

[metaphase]

yep, that sounds like us!

so what do we do?

[AussieWebmaster]

yep, that sounds like us!

so what do we do?
Just wait her out.

[metaphase]

surely if you change the sandboxed site content significantly, to target a different keyword then you should start showing for the new keyword, so long as it isnt too competitive?

If I were to add a new page of content optimised for a less competitive keyword would this get indexed or is the whole domain sandboxed?

[summerherekids]

this is just another sign that google is losing touch with reality.

now they are refusing to list irrelevant sites in the serps.

what next?