Google sand box

[sunfer_p]

Does really Google sandbox exist? And why some website get sandboxed?

[Eager2SEO]

Originally Posted by sunfer_p

Does really Google sandbox exist? And why some website get sandboxed?

Call it what you want, I think purgatory may be a better term. If Google does not feel your site is in line with their business model, or does not provide a "good user experience" it goes on the last pages of search. There are many reasons why it happens.

[purdue512]

Originally Posted by Eager2SEO

Call it what you want, I think purgatory may be a better term. If Google does not feel your site is in line with their business model, or does not provide a "good user experience" it goes on the last pages of search. There are many reasons why it happens.

Yes. I believe it really exists. Over the years that I've been doing SEO, I have seen a handful of sites go into what you call the "sandbox." I believe it is a keyword-specific drop in rankings. Back in 2008, I got really curious about this behavior of Google, so I decided to see if I could induce it. It was not actually that hard. You simple use the exact same anchor text over and over and over and over.

What I found is that over-anchoring is a quick way to induce a sandbox penalty. The penalty varies anywhere from dropping a few pages in the rankings to being removed entirely (for that specific keyword). In all cases, the website came back on that word, but it can take as long as 90 days..

As for getting a site completely removed from Google for wrong-doing, I have never experienced that. So if that is what you mean by "sandbox" perhaps someone else can chime in and share their experience.

[bgmacaw]

My standard answer...

YouTube - The Matrix - Spoon (cro sub)

...there is no spoon.

[M Stevens]

I don't think it does. I think your site may shift around now and then but no, unless you do something outragous in the first few weeks of having your site up, I don't think anything will happen.

[Wesley Atkins]

The Sandbox as such is not a place that your website goes, but a filter (like many others) that Google employ on some new sites...

I hate the word Sandbox. However, It's an Aging Filter that prevents some new sites from ranking highly until sufficient trust is established in that domain...

I've built hundreds of sites over the past few years and understanding Google's ranking process on new sites has kind of been an obsession of mine as I've always strived to get rankings in the fastest time possible...

So, call it what you will, but to answer your question, In my opinion.... YES, it does exist!

The filter is placed on sites in certain industries (probably based on CPC levels - like manual reviews are...) and is entirely based on the promotion activities that you employ on your site in the early stages of its life...

It only makes sense why they would use such a filter too..

...To prevent what has been the vain of their results since 2000:

Scaped Content
Auto Blogging
Etc...

...in my opinion, this the number one reason that most people give up on SEO as they believe it too difficult...

Ever given up on a site that is burried in the results and 5 months or so after not touching it, it jumps to page 1 or 2...?

In most cases, that's your site being released from a filter..

Here are my guidelines for building a new site and things to stay away from in the first few months after Google caching your site...

Following the basic guidelines below will prevent you from getting trapped in any filters, penalties, & supplement results....

Rule No: 1. Ensure basic SEO

- Unique title tags across all page
- Unique description tags on all pages (or use none)
- Ensure no broken links / 404 error pages

Rule No: 2. Avoid the mass mindset

- Don’t submit your site to 1000’s of article directories
- Don’t submit your site to 1000’s of social bookmarking sites
- Don’t build links with spun content
- Don’t syndicate your site with RSS to 100’s of directories

Rule No: 3. Link Building Guidelines

- Ensure link diversity
- Ensure sufficient anchor text rotation
- Avoid buying or selling links for SEO manipulation
- Make sure to deeplink your long tail pages too not just your homepage
- Avoid sitewide links with the same anchor text

Rule No: 4. Design / Content Guidelines

- Ensure you use 100% unique content on your site
- Don’t have a double adsense block at the top of your site
- Don’t build MFA (Made for adsense) sites that offer no additional value

Important: Once you've built trust in your domain, you can get away with *most* of the above, just not on a new site :-)

[paulgl]

People ignore the SEO FAQ at the top of this part of the forum. If they
did, they would read:

What's the sandbox?

The disappointment webmasters feel when Google's stupid algorithms don't appreciate their site. It can't be them so it must be Google's fault.

SEO - Frequently Asked Questions

My gosh the fairy tales are spinning out of control today!
What's up with that?

Paul

[bgmacaw]

And, most important of all, use both the protection and money charms while creating your site and building links to it...

YouTube - Magic Spells Love Spells Powerful Magic...

Enjoy the power and success!

[Look4VGames]

it dosen't exist

[ry278]

Definitely exists, no question about that.

[pavionjsl]

Originally Posted by ry278

Definitely exists, no question about that.

Love to know how you know that or feel that there is?

[AnthonyR]

It happend to me before...one of my websites was on page 3 and then all of sudden the very next day it was nowhere to be found. Well I didn't look past page 20. And it was like that for about 2 weeks. And then "Bam!" it landed on the first page. During that time my VA was doing a lot of backlinking so maybe that's why the website got shifted around.

[Wesley Atkins]

Michael Gray of (Wolf Howl SEO) says it perfectly..

"The sandbox isn’t something you are trying to get out of, it’s the trustbox that you are trying to figure a way into."

You can read more here...

The Sandbox is not the Trustbox

[dburk]

Originally Posted by Wesley Atkins

The Sandbox as such is not a place that your website goes, but a filter (like many others) that Google employ on some new sites...

I hate the word Sandbox. However, It's an Aging Filter that prevents some new sites from ranking highly until sufficient trust is established in that domain...

I've built hundreds of sites over the past few years and understanding Google's ranking process on new sites has kind of been an obsession of mine as I've always strived to get rankings in the fastest time possible...

So, call it what you will, but to answer your question, In my opinion.... YES, it does exist!

The filter is placed on sites in certain industries (probably based on CPC levels - like manual reviews are...) and is entirely based on the promotion activities that you employ on your site in the early stages of its life...

It only makes sense why they would use such a filter too..

...To prevent what has been the vain of their results since 2000:

Scaped Content
Auto Blogging
Etc...

...in my opinion, this the number one reason that most people give up on SEO as they believe it too difficult...

Ever given up on a site that is burried in the results and 5 months or so after not touching it, it jumps to page 1 or 2...?

In most cases, that's your site being released from a filter..

Here are my guidelines for building a new site and things to stay away from in the first few months after Google caching your site...

Following the basic guidelines below will prevent you from getting trapped in any filters, penalties, & supplement results....

Rule No: 1. Ensure basic SEO

- Unique title tags across all page
- Unique description tags on all pages (or use none)
- Ensure no broken links / 404 error pages

Rule No: 2. Avoid the mass mindset

- Don’t submit your site to 1000’s of article directories
- Don’t submit your site to 1000’s of social bookmarking sites
- Don’t build links with spun content
- Don’t syndicate your site with RSS to 100’s of directories

Rule No: 3. Link Building Guidelines

- Ensure link diversity
- Ensure sufficient anchor text rotation
- Avoid buying or selling links for SEO manipulation
- Make sure to deeplink your long tail pages too not just your homepage
- Avoid sitewide links with the same anchor text

Rule No: 4. Design / Content Guidelines

- Ensure you use 100% unique content on your site
- Don’t have a double adsense block at the top of your site
- Don’t build MFA (Made for adsense) sites that offer no additional value

Important: Once you've built trust in your domain, you can get away with *most* of the above, just not on a new site :-)

Hi Wesley,

I must respectfully disagree with you on several points.

First and foremost, there is no sandbox, except for what webmaster visualize in their own imagination.

Second, the use of the term filter is a misnomer. Google applies trust factors that weight the value of some of the signals used for scoring relevancy, however none of those could be accurately characterized as filters. A filter excludes query results, it is not a weighting factor. Since your web page is never excluded from search results, based on aging, it is a misnomer to call aging factor a "filter". It would be more accurate, IMHO, to call the age factor a signal of trust, or a trust factor.

I believe in most cases that when someone perceives the illusion of being filtered, or penalized, they have simple enjoyed the temporary benefit of QDF and "feel" like their pages have been singled out for some sort of penalty. This is simply a perception based on a misunderstanding of what is actually occurring.

The suggestion that filters are placed on entire websites is a not supported by real evidence unless your website has been de-indexed. Typically, folks who claim this are often ranking well for many keywords with low competition.

I also disagree with your assertion that there is some sort of filtering or penalty based on the number backlinks from article directories, bookmarks or other common sources of backlinks. Having a large number of backlinks may cause your pages to come under scrutiny, but penalties are based on violations of webmaster guidelines. There is no webmaster guideline that suggests that you should limit how much you promote your web pages, only that your methods should be meritorious.

[Wesley Atkins]

Originally Posted by dburk

Hi Wesley,

I must respectfully disagree with you on several points.

First and foremost, there is no sandbox, except for what webmaster visualize in their own imagination.

Second, the use of the term filter is a misnomer. Google applies trust factors that weight the value of some of the signals used for scoring relevancy, however none of those could be accurately characterized as filters. A filter excludes query results, it is not a weighting factor. Since your web page is never excluded from search results, based on aging, it is a misnomer to call aging factor a "filter". It would be more accurate, IMHO, to call the age factor a signal of trust, or a trust factor.

I believe in most cases that when someone perceives the illusion of being filtered, or penalized, they have simple enjoyed the temporary benefit of QDF and "feel" like their pages have been singled out for some sort of penalty. This is simply a perception based on a misunderstanding of what is actually occurring.

The suggestion that filters are placed on entire websites is a not supported by real evidence unless your website has been de-indexed. Typically, folks who claim this are often ranking well for many keywords with low competition.

I also disagree with your assertion that there is some sort of filtering or penalty based on the number backlinks from article directories, bookmarks or other common sources of backlinks. Having a large number of backlinks may cause your pages to come under scrutiny, but penalties are based on violations of webmaster guidelines. There is no webmaster guideline that suggests that you should limit how much you promote your web pages, only that your methods should be meritorious.

The terminology used is not important in my mind..

The fact is that Google award Trust to a new website based on a certain set of promotional activities...

Not having a diverse source of links or having all the same anchor text will see your site being restricted of this trust / filtered whatever you want to call it, until an aging period has expired..

This has been my experience anyway and is entirely my opinion

[paulgl]

Originally Posted by dburk

Hi Wesley,

The suggestion that filters are placed on entire websites is a not supported by real evidence unless your website has been de-indexed. Typically, folks who claim this are often ranking well for many keywords with low competition.

De-indexing is the only real "google" penalty. The rest is on you.
Judging something differently due to new or changed nuances is
not a penalty. It's a re-evaluation as to where it stands.

Paul