Does Yahoo Sandbox? and a few related Qs.

[sarumu1]

Hi everybody.

So my site is a little bit over one month old.

With keyword searches of the top two keywords in my field + a more specialized keyword (total of three keywords), my site shows up in position #4 or #7.

However, when searching yahoo with just the top two keywords, my site does not show up at all in the top 1000.

Is there a waiting period with Yahoo? It's hard for me to believe that my site isn't showing up in the top 1000 (some of the sites at the end of that list are total dogs - bad content, few links, etc.)

Should I just be sitting tight?

Any advice/ answers/ thoughts appreciated.

Best, Subbu.

[Dave Hawley]

IMO, there is no "sandbox" effect for new sites that have been built for humans. It's when one intially sets up their site mainly for SEs the they 'hold you back'. Often (but not only) these are sites that spent umpteen $'s getting links to them. Google aint that silly to see a site as relevant just because a site has spent BIG $'s buying link popularity.

However, regardless of good SERP ranking or bad, one should always be continually working toward keeping up/ahead with the growth of the area of business they are targetting.

[Marcia]

Subbu, there's no time lag for ranking with Yahoo, it's probably likely that the two-word phrase is very, very competitive.

[DaveN]

The worst one i have seen in yahoo is the double home page problem, other than that they a pretty good

DaveN

[Dave Hawley]

As all the big SE's now seem to be using links as part of their ranking algo there is a time factor, be it indirect.

[Marcia]

What is currently happening with Google has nothing whatsoever to do with how Yahoo is handling IBLs. Yahoo happens to be very good in that regard, and IMHO has maintained an excellent balance between on-page scoring criteria and off-page linking factors.

[Nacho]

Hello Sabbu! I've noticed that Slurp takes a lot longer than Googlebot and MSNbot to crawl brand new sites. Have you checked if your pages are indexed by using the site: command?

[Marcia]

To reply specifically to the sandbox question, the sandboxing that exists is strictly a Google phenomenon and has nothing to do with Yahoo. With Yahoo and other engines it's simply a matter of their crawling and updating schedules and frequencies so it takes a little while to see.

>>So my site is a little bit over one month old.

That's too soon without PFI, but they do get to all sites that have some good links. In fact, IMHO a listing in the Yahoo Directory is still a good one to have, if budget allows.

Only Google is sandboxing sites, no others are so far.

[dannysullivan]

Folks, this thread is starting to get off the topic as to whether sandboxing exists on search engines in general or on Google. I've deleted the last round of those.

Question was, does Yahoo do sandboxing of sites in the way that some believe that Google does. Keep your answers specific to Yahoo.

If you want to debate whether sandboxing exists at all, this is the thread for that: SEO World Obsessed With Sandbox

[Nacho]

I agree with Marcia completely. From my own testing to this date, Yahoo is not applying any time delay to any of it's on-page or off-page factors.

[siteseo]

I have a small site, about 4 months old, not a remarkably competitive niche either - Yahoo recognizes 30 IBL's to the site, but thus far has only indexed the home page, from which I do get a trickle of organic traffic. How long does it take Yahoo to crawl a 30 page website with 30 IBL's?

[snort]

I have found it nearly impossible to get a new domain to rank well on Yahoo. However a single optimized page on an older, established domain will rank well immediately. Yahoo's preference for old domains presumably tackles the same problem as the Google sandbox - making it difficult to build artificial link networks.

[fthead9]

I have a client with two new urls. One is about 4 months old and is now ranking first and second page on Yahoo for its main keyword phrases. The other site for the same client is about a month and a half old and has yet to be indexed by Yahoo.

Google has indexed both but neither shows up in the top 100 for any keywords. In my experience the Google sandbox is very real while Yahoo will rank you immediately; they just take forever to index. Outside of the slow indexing I have to say Yahoo is looking better and better while Google continues to disappoint and the new MSN is an absolute joke, at least from what I've seen.

[2much]

I've had sites spidered, indexed and ranked in Yahoo within 5 days.

There is no Yahoo sandbox.

Reasons for not ranking with new URL's have a lot more to do with competitiveness of SERP's, on-page optimization, & inbound links.

Yahoo recently changed it's criteria for ranking based on inbound links, and is now requiring links from a larger quantity of domains.

[sarumu1]

so are you suggesting that there must be a certain number of inbound links accumulated/ threshold reached for a site to be included in search results? If so, then that threshold number would likely vary between keyword groups.

?

subbu.

[2much]

Yes, that's exactly right.

[DaveN]

as if 2much needed any support, but I stand right behind her on this one something changed recently and back links where a keyfactor... I don't want to go right out on a limb but 5000 ibl's from one site, is not as go as 10 ibl's from different URLS... THIS IS JUST MY OPINION



DaveN