SEO World Obsessed with Sandbox

[sem4u]

Originally Posted by Nacho

Like I said, I've seen new domains start ranking well for competitive U.S. English keywords in just a few days.

Care to share any examples?

[Mikkel deMib Svendsen]

Yes, the subdomain seesm to work. However, I've seen some people exploit this in a VERY risky way, moving cloaked sites that they would usually put on completely new "privacy" domains to minimize risks to a subdomain to the clients name. You can probably all guess what happens if they get usted? Right, both the subdomain and the mother donain get penalized!

However, if you site content is not "shady" then I'll suggest you go ahead with the subdomain strategy spriced up with some strong external links.

[Mikkel deMib Svendsen]

Oh yeah, by the way, I will still claim that if you are working with sites in languages outside the major ones (possibly just outside english) then you probably won't find a problem.

I have launched several sites in Danish since the introduction of Sandbox and they all seem to slip through. Just did a new one two weeks ago for a VERY competitive area - brand new domain, no strong links (only PR 3-5 links) and made 100% for spiders (yes, it's cloaked auto generated stuff) and it ranks very fine. For the most competitive of the words in the project we currently rank top 6.

I hope you understand why I can't show you the site in question

[rustybrick]

Originally Posted by Mikkel deMib Svendsen

Oh yeah, by the way, I will still claim that if you are working with sites in languages outside the major ones (possibly just outside english) then you probably won't find a problem.

I hope to test this out within the month. A site in Hebrew.

[Mikkel deMib Svendsen]

I hope to test this out within the month. A site in Hebrew.

I am pretty sure you should go free of Sandoxing for Hebrew but I haven't actually done that language so I couldn't be sure. Just remember to add the same level of links and apply the same good SEO as you would pre-Sandboxing times - you still need that

[pmac]

>>>>>>f I ever get ANY information on the answer I will share it publicly everywhere

And then you will quickly find that the technique that you are sharing with the world will no longer work. Google will close the door on it quick. See any us.com or centralnic domains ranking for anything as Danny pointed out in his post? Nope. Gone. Nuked. Toasted.

Sometimes (errr, ok, pretty much all the time) discretion is the better part of valour.

[Robert_Charlton]

Originally Posted by rustybrick

...First put the site live on the subdomain. Then after that gets indexed, 301 it to the new URL. I am told, that it sometimes works and kicks you out of that sandbox.

I never tried it, so I can not confirm it.

Barry - In my experience, 301s can trigger the sandbox. Redirect an authority site (in its field) to a new domain, and you can suddenly find that you have a site that doesn't rank for its own name. The name, of course, is a competitive term, because so many other sites refer to it.

Changing over the great many inbound links such a site has, of course, takes time... and I've heard from others that this does not necessarily work.

So I'd be careful about 301s, at least until there's a thaw on Google. Again, I believe I've seen signs that a thaw is coming.

[randfish]

Originally Posted by pmac

Sometimes (errr, ok, pretty much all the time) discretion is the better part of valour.

But, the sandbox must be based on some type of mathematical component in the algorithm. In order to "shut down" the way around it, Google would have to exclude the algo piece or modify it. In this way, it's almost like the SEO community is responsible for releasing the sandbox filter by solving it and making the solution widely known. I wonder if that's how Google views it and they're just waiting for us to solve it so they can put another algo filter component in to hurt SEO rankings.

[rustybrick]

Thanks for the real life case Robert, nothing like an open area to discuss these topics.

I'll keep you posted on the Hebrew site, should be cool to look at.

[Dave Hawley]

I think one must also be careful that any cure is not worse than the disease.

[Mel]

Whatever the reasoning behind the "sandbox" it is apparent that it does exist (that is not to say that there are not those who do not understand how to avoid it) and that it is not a general algo change which affects all sites the same.

Older sites continue to rank well with the same content and new pages are indexed and rank quickly, whereas newer sites do not rank well for a period of time and then one day start ranking well even though no changes have been made and only then are able to compete with older sites. IMO this clearly demonstrates that there is a time factor involved.

[AussieWebmaster]

We had no sandbox for our spanish site. We are about to roll our French, German, Italian and Arabic will keep you posted.

[dannysullivan]

FYI, Example Of A Sandboxed Site? has some results of a site Fathom offered up in November, if people want to poke at something.

[Robert_Charlton]

Regarding an example of a sandboxed site... I remember seeing posted somewhere on this forum, but can't find now, the example of sma-uk. As I remember, the post mentioned that it may not be quite the same as other sandboxed sites, but it provides an illustration of what appears to be happening.

Searching Google two minutes ago for sma-uk, I see that sma-uk.org is now #13 on Google, up, as I remember, quite a bit from where it had been.

On Yahoo, it's #1 for the same search.

The site shows 446 backlinks on Yahoo, and I'd guess, but haven't checked, that at least some of them include the "sma-uk" in the anchor text. I'm guessing that no one took pains to optimize the site for "sma-uk." So, here we have a well-linked site designed for users that's clearly not ranking for an obvious term by which it should be found.

It could be argued, I suppose, that in this case it's just a difference in algos... and that Yahoo might be giving more weight to domain names, and that sma-uk.org doesn't have "sma-uk" in the title, but, still, I would expect the site to rank higher. This is the kind of thing I remember from the Florida update.

Anyone remember where the original post was?

[NFFC]

Maybe here Robert? http://www.threadwatch.org/node/200

[Dave Hawley]

So, here we have a well-linked site designed for users that's clearly not ranking for an obvious term by which it should be found.

Robert, if your guess is correct and the sites was never otimized for "sma-uk" why should it rank well on Google? Also, how does one set up a site for "sma-uk" with users in mind?

To me, it looks like the site is all about "Search Marketing Association" and there is some stiff competition in that area. A year or more, would not be unusual would it?

[niceland]

Hi

I am new to this forum, but I have been an active reader.

I may not have read enough but it seems few have exact experience of the Sandbox or are reluctant to tell others. I can tell you there is a Sandbox, deleyed time, new site penalty or whatever the name fits.

I started a new site in Dec that I had been working on for a long time and of course, like the publisher of this site, I placed a link to my new site on all other websites that I have that have similar or related content and wasn't thinking it might hurt in any way. Few days after I placed the links all the Websites seems to be fading away in Google and even though the new site got into Google after 4 days it wasn't available in any search results above 100. In the middle of Dec. I removed almost all links and reset all sites as they were before. Today Google is still showing results based on the Dec. links. 4 days to start your Sandbox and it takes at least more than month to get out.

It is obvious Google penalizes heavy linking, wrong linking, bad links, little or no content and whatever. They are quick to impose the effects slow to rewind.

I am really grateful for the nofollow tag and I am already using it.

My experience with Yahoo would need another post and maybe another topic.

Thanks for a great forum and great discussion.

[Dave Hawley]

Hi niceland

Nice first post.

Few days after I placed the links all the Websites seems to be fading away in Google and even though the new site got into Google after 4 days it wasn't available in any search results above 100

Could you expand on the bolded bit somewhat please? You seem to be saying you were ranking well in Google, but after the aggressive link campaign you dropped a lot. If so, about how long after was it?

Sorry about the 20 questions on your first post

[niceland]

Thanks. Glad to answer.
It was about 4-7 days after the site went up. It started slowly and it took about 10 days. I wasn't monitoring heavily te first days. I was expecting a long birth for the new site, but I didn't expect the effects on the sites linking to the new one. I guess without knowing I did something Google didn't like and it was exactly the same the publishers of this forum described they do. To me it is a natural way of telling others coming to my sites about my new site - who wouldn't.

I do not want to be complaining a lot because Google has brought so many good things that I have enjoyed, but I do not think it is their idea to stall the new part of the Web being born every day. They embrace innovation, they should embrace it too among Webmasters too and find other ways to clean the index and fight the spammers.

[JohnW]

niceland, welcome to SEW. Thanks for sharing your experience. IMO, giving one link to a new site will not usually hurt the site giving the link, unless there is something else going on that has not been mentioned. I don't want to speculate on what the other problems may be, but IMO you should keep looking at your group of sites and how they link to each other, and how and to whom they link to other sites. Just my $.02

>I am really grateful for the nofollow tag and I am already using it.

Curious here, what are you using it for?