Sandboxed again... WTF does google hate me!

[mattyttv]

hi warriors,

i was hoping someone may be able to help me here.

first up let me say that i understand SEO very well, but have been burned by google in the past for smashing a new site with links too fast.

it took 4 months for that site to reappear in SERP's above number 30, after being position 3 on page 1. i learned my lesson there.

note: this coincided with a large article submission to freetrafficsystem.com

as a result of this experience i did not want to go through it again with my next niche marketing project, so i tried a different approach on my next niche site, but now i am in the same position.

here are the steps i followed:

1 - registered keyword optimised domain name

2 - installed wordpress as site platform and plugins

3 - create unique 5 pages on the site, with navigation hierarchy, contact and privacy pages

4 - set up affiliate offer on site from CJ.com with cloaked links

5 - sent 5 blog comments from niche relevant high traffic blogs to the main URL for faster indexing

6 - waited 5 months for the site to mature in the index, before any linking (this was not planned, it just happened that way)

7 - noticed my site appearing on page 3 for my main keyword naturally about then

8 - started to plan and execute link campaign

9 - built 1 squidoo lense + 1 post on 6 other similar web 2.0 content sites

10 - in addition, i set up a blog on Posterous.com with the autoposts going to Blogger.com, LiveJounal.com, Tumbler.com, Wordpress.com, and Twitter.com as well. This multisite update occurs when you update your Posterous.com blog with content.

(was posting every second day at 4:1 ratio. eg 4 links to other peoples stuff, and then 1 link to my site) - chasing a natural link graph

At this point my site got to page 1 position 8 for my keyword

11 - bookmarked my main site on fresh accounts at 10 bookmarking sites

12 - bought 5 High PR blog comments from FreeTrafficSystem.com to my main URL

NOW Heres where it turned to Poo.

13 - I was in the process of setting up more unique bookmarking accounts in preparation to link ONLY to my web 2.0 content and blog post, (NOT my website) and before I even completed setting up the accounts, BAM... my site is not to be seen in the top 100 results. ANYWHERE.

Just like last time!!

Common factors are:

• Use of FreeTrafficSystem.com to post content with links back to my main sites URL
• Use of BookmarkingDemon.com to create BM accounts and very small scale posting, using paid exclusive Proxy Server with multiple IP address list for account creation and posting. Once again this was low scale!!
• Use of new gMail accounts as an email provider to set up new web 2.0 account, BM accounts etc..

This time my delivery of links was slow, heck I only have 30 inbound link showing the yahoo site.explorer index.

What is google picking on here????

Perhaps I need to start any new projects on a new hosting service with a fresh hosting account.

Also change my local IP on my router. cancel my current niche marking project as i may have left an IP footprint somewhere that google is seeing and then Sandboxing me as soon as I start performing and linking activities.

I would be thankful for any advice.

Best,

Matty T

[Andrei Rotariu]

Whats the site?

It may have to do with googles new anti spam/content farms (not saying thats what your doing at all).

[donnan]

Hi matty,

Google are always upgrading and improving their algorithms for indexing and keyword placement. It wouldn't surprise me to find that google's staff are members here at Warrior passing on some of the information you have just outlined.

In google's attempts to be the best in the industry it must try and always be 1 step ahead of it's users that are able to cleverly manipulate (for want of a better word) the searches in their favour.

Technology is always improving so we must continue to find better ways to do things to stay in line with how things are supposed to work. If we are lucky enough to find a weakness and exploit that, it's great, but it just never seems to last too long.

Maybe, you haven't done anything wrong, but maybe google has found that your cross linking has rung alarm bells and this is part of a new algorithm. Go through each step one at a time. With 2 or 3 different sites. It will soon show where you are being penalised.

[thebitbotdotcom]

Wow. That is why I am increasingly avoiding link building services of any type.

[Steven Wagenheim]

IMO, # 12 is what did you in.

** DISCLAIMER ** This is JUST my opinion, not to be taken as fact.

[WillR]

My question would be, do you have Google Analytics installed on these sites?

[cashcow]

Perhaps your problem could have to do with link velocity -The rate at which you get links.

You let the blog sit for 5 months, right? no backlink building? Then all of a sudden you start a big backlink campaign. Probably a signal for Goog to take a better look at your site.

If you keep steadily building at about the same rate, you might find that you float back up to your rightful place.

That's just my guess as I don't believe any of the linking tactics in themselves would cause this.

I always find a big shift in rankings when I have abandoned a project and then all of a sudden come back to it and start link building.

Just my 2 cents and worth probably less than that.

Lee

[oneplusone]

I doubt Google is punishing your site, it is probably more to do with them discounting the backlinks.

The reality is, it is totally irrelevant whether you, your competitor or some ghost creates junk backlinks to your site - if Google thinks they aren't natural they will be discounted at some stage.

Then your site ends up where it would have been with few or no backlinks, and the illusion of your site being "punished" is created.

Your site probably wasn't punished, the backlinks were simply discounted.

If you think about Gmail, they are very accurate when deciding what goes into the Spam folder compared to other services.

If you're going to send 10,000 junk e-mails to people with Gmail accounts, chances are most of them will end up in their spam folders.

If you're going to create 10,000 junk links back to your site, chances are most of them ... well you get the idea

From reading your post (auto this, auto that), chances are all or most of the backlinks you've created have simply been discounted as spam.

Rather than wasting your time with these tools and services, you need to figure out how you can get relevant contextual backlinks from pages with a high PageRank.

As with most things, it comes back to quality and not quantity.

[Dahlia Valentine]

I reverse engineer A LOT of top 10 sites across many different niches. (Weird hobby, I know.) I really like delving into highly competitive niches, because that's where you can see what's really working on the link building front.

Yesterday I analyzed a few sites in the weight loss niche. Keywords with mondo boffo traffic.

I found it amazing that on average, 3 websites out of the top 10 had been around for less than a year.

Most of these newbies DID have tons of junk backlinks... forum profiles, comment spam, the usual BS.

But... and here's the kicker... they ALSO had a ton of really targeted backlinks from other weight loss and health related websites.

One new site in the #2 position for a keyword that generates more than 350K local searches a month (according to the Google Keyword tool), had over 13K backlinks. 11K of those backlinks were directed to whatever page was showing up in that #2 position. Probably 40% of their backlinks were targeted.

I don't know how long they've been there. I don't know how long they'll last in that position.

What I do know is that the site showed up in the top 10 for a few very competitive keywords. I assume that those crappy BS backlinks are working for them somewhere in the process. But more importantly, I think those targeted backlinks are adding a lot of fire power.

So my suggestion is that if you're going to do the whole BS backlink thing, you need to offset it by getting more targeted backlinks.

Automation is a fantastic thing in this business, and I'm all for it. But if you're going to do 'niche' marketing, you should be getting more 'niche' links. Sometimes that involves NOT paying for links, but actually getting on these blogs and contributing comments.

Don't worry about do follow and no follow and all those metrics that shouldn't mean anything to you right now. Just be concerned with getting targeted backlinks.

[suemax]

Me too - (avoiding any linkbuilding services). I keep reading horror stories.

It seems to me that the freetrafficsystem turn on after so long in dormancy has alerted google and what they then noticed was the massive link-building.

As others have seen, I am pretty sure Google has an eye in here. We aren't going to be able to use all these "google loopholes" so openly for long.

[JohnMcCabe]

Yes, you finally figured it out. A multinational, multi-billion dollar, publicly traded corporation hates you. You, specifically, as an individual. Wikileaks has the memo...

I think oneplusone nailed it. The services you used leave footprints. My guess is that Google has decided that the only people using those services are sites trying to artificially inflate their search positions. So they ignore links with those footprints.

Using Gmail as the email provider for your fake accounts might not have been the brightest move, either.

This is especially likely, given the information Dahlia provided.

[WillR]

The biggest thing you are all missing here is TRAFFIC.

The problem is you are building a lot of links to your sites in a short period of time. Guess what? This DOES actually happen sometimes to websites naturally. A new site will come online, catch on, and go viral. All of a sudden this site ends up with a whole lot of links in a short period of time.

But will this site get banned or sent to the sandbox? No.

Because the other half of the puzzle is traffic. Use some common sense. If a site starts getting a whole lot of links to it but has little to none traffic, how on earth could those links have appeared naturally? How on earth can or would someone link to a site they haven't even visited.

Imagine you are Google and you see this. A site has 400 new backlinks from 400 different urls. The site has had 50 visitors in total since it went online. You do the maths. Does that look very natural to you? If so, keep doing it and keep wondering why your sites end up sandboxed.

[Paul_Short]

To the OP - did you also use any other google services like any webmaster tools or google analytics?

If so, and you're into heavy seo, it's like feeding the dog that bites you.

Paul

[cashcow]

Originally Posted by WillR

The biggest thing you are all missing here is TRAFFIC.

The problem is you are building a lot of links to your sites in a short period of time. Guess what? This DOES actually happen sometimes to websites naturally. A new site will come online, catch on, and go viral. All of a sudden this site ends up with a whole lot of links in a short period of time.

But will this site get banned or sent to the sandbox? No.

Because the other half of the puzzle is traffic. Use some common sense. If a site starts getting a whole lot of links to it but has little to none traffic, how on earth could those links have appeared naturally? How on earth can or would someone link to a site they haven't even visited.

Imagine you are Google and you see this. A site has 400 new backlinks from 400 different urls. The site has had 50 visitors in total since it went online. You do the maths. Does that look very natural to you? If so, keep doing it and keep wondering why your sites end up sandboxed.

How very interesting, I never thought of this and am now doing a mental head slap... of course. Can google tell how much traffic you are getting if you don't have google analytics or webmaster tools installed?

Lee

[Devid Farah]

I’d advise you to try a different link building strategy: guest post.

If you are trying to make your links look as natural as possible, then guest post backlinks will be the best way to go.

Guest posts are great because your link will be surrounded by relevant content on a relevant blog.

While there is no hard evidence, backlinks buried within guest post seem to carry the most weight.

It might be worth you experimenting with it to see if your site climbs up the rankings again.

[WillR]

Originally Posted by cashcow

How very interesting, I never thought of this and am now doing a mental head slap... of course. Can google tell how much traffic you are getting if you don't have google analytics or webmaster tools installed?

Lee

This was also talked about some time ago by Ryan Deiss:

Page Ranking Triad That Google Doesn’t Know About | Driving Traffic

He called it the ranking triad.

[la dominatrix]

In my experience the chief reason for people getting sandboxed has to do with, inferior or irrelevant back links, Google is looking for natural banklinks.

Originally Posted by cashcow

How very interesting, I never thought of this and am now doing a mental head slap... of course. Can google tell how much traffic you are getting if you don't have google analytics or webmaster tools installed?

Lee

Lee
You can of course use another anayltic service that Google can't moniter. Try Clicky as we all need to moniter our own statistics, but its not rocket science if we can see where are traffic is coming from then so can Google if you use Google analytics.

[WillR]

Originally Posted by la dominatrix

You can of course use another anayltic service that Google can't moniter. Try Clicky as we all need to moniter our own statistics, but its not rocket science if we can see where are traffic is coming from then so can Google if you use Google analytics.

Precisely... or in most cases, where our traffic ISN'T coming from. Most Internet Marketers use Google Analytics. But I'm guessing even if not using GA they would have their ways of coming up with this sort of rough data through other means.

It just makes sense though. Ask yourself this. What exactly would happen to a website that was popular? And the answer is all you then need to do to your site.

1. The content has to be there before anything can happen.
2. Some traffic is going to start going to the site.
3. Links are going to start pointing to that site.

And as the traffic increases so will the amount of links and vice versa.

[CDarklock]

Originally Posted by cashcow

Probably a signal for Goog to take a better look at your site.

Search engines take a closer look at your site when you rise high enough in the rankings, no matter how fast or slow you do it.

[daangertenaar]

Originally Posted by CDarklock

Search engines take a closer look at your site when you rise high enough in the rankings, no matter how fast or slow you do it.

Yup, I have a feeling this is on rank 7. My website get's stuck on every keyword at rank 7.

[harro1]

I am not sure if sandbox is permanent, one of my site got back from sandbox just last week.

[GeorgR.]

Originally Posted by Steven Wagenheim

IMO, # 12 is what did you in.

** DISCLAIMER ** This is JUST my opinion, not to be taken as fact.

yup. Otherwise everything looks kosher. The term "bought links" alone raises a flag.

[E-supreme]

1. Start buying aged domains.

2. Never install GA or submit to webmaster tools.

3. Start your new projects on new hosting and pay for privacy for your domains.

4. The main problem is in 12.

5. 301 redirect aged domains with pr to a new site your starting.

6. Create another few domains related to a niche your in and funnel your links to these domains which link to your site. For this to be effective they need to have separate ips.

[keyaziz]

Go to google's content guidelines: Webmaster Guidelines - Webmaster Tools Help

Check your site over. Then ask google to reconsider your site.

Last year at beginning of December one of my sites took a nose dive off the front page after I added 5 ezinearticles backlinks. I couldn't get it to move. So I happened to notice in my webmasters you can get google to reconsider your site if its doing poorly..so a few weeks ago I checked over my site to make sure I was within their guidelines, then contacted them and told them I noticed it took a nosedive after adding ezinearticle backlinks. A few days later my site was in the number one position for both my main keywords which is better than before. So contacting google was the best thing I could have ever done. It's been there for the past few weeks now, so I know it wasn't a fluke and it was down to contacting them.

[lolmoney]

Just leave the site and come back in a few months. Thats what I do and they tend to come out stronger than ever.

[StevenJones]

I personally don't see why you see sandbox as an issue. It's positive in a way. Just keep building links! And you will be okay. Just see it this way, google is reviewing your site:P

[CDarklock]

Originally Posted by daangertenaar

Yup, I have a feeling this is on rank 7.

At Microsoft, we used a 3D scale. This is massively oversimplified, because I can't tell you the real details.

Imagine that the web is a cube. Your SERP is somewhere on the height of the cube. Your search volume - the number of queries you rank for - is somewhere on the width. And your clickthru, how many people click your entry, is a position in the depth of the cube.

This identifies each and every website as a point in three-dimensional space.

Now imagine that every test the search engine can run on your website is a smaller cube, inside the large cube of the web. If your website is inside that cube, the test is run on your site.

Here's where things get interesting.

If your site scores extremely well or extremely badly on a test, you can be pushed around in the rankings far enough to skip entire other tests.

When you build links fast, this is one way to score very well very quickly on some tests. But another test, higher up, tests something where you score very badly. In between the two tests, there is a test that would place you precisely where you ought to be in the rankings... but because you leapfrogged that test, it didn't get run.

There is a system in place to handle this, but it takes time. After a number of bounces past the middle test, you eventually do get that test run, and your position stabilises.

Hence the "dancing" behaviour people talk about.

Of course, we didn't use cubes at Microsoft. We used spheroids with more than three dimensions. The Pythagorean theorem can be extrapolated to any arbitrary number of dimensions for distance calculation, and polar coordinates make that easy to convert.

[Paul_Short]

Originally Posted by CDarklock

At Microsoft, we used a 3D scale. This is massively oversimplified, because I can't tell you the real details.

Imagine that the web is a cube. Your SERP is somewhere on the height of the cube. Your search volume - the number of queries you rank for - is somewhere on the width. And your clickthru, how many people click your entry, is a position in the depth of the cube.

This identifies each and every website as a point in three-dimensional space.

Now imagine that every test the search engine can run on your website is a smaller cube, inside the large cube of the web. If your website is inside that cube, the test is run on your site.

Here's where things get interesting.

If your site scores extremely well or extremely badly on a test, you can be pushed around in the rankings far enough to skip entire other tests.

When you build links fast, this is one way to score very well very quickly on some tests. But another test, higher up, tests something where you score very badly. In between the two tests, there is a test that would place you precisely where you ought to be in the rankings... but because you leapfrogged that test, it didn't get run.

There is a system in place to handle this, but it takes time. After a number of bounces past the middle test, you eventually do get that test run, and your position stabilises.

Hence the "dancing" behaviour people talk about.

Of course, we didn't use cubes at Microsoft. We used spheroids with more than three dimensions. The Pythagorean theorem can be extrapolated to any arbitrary number of dimensions for distance calculation, and polar coordinates make that easy to convert.

Oh, stop your mental schlong swinging Cal

But I'm impressed nonetheless. The one and two dimensional world has long since lost it's appeal to me. I love your analogy and right now am visualizing a multi-dimensional holographic image that can be manipulated like a fluid. Awesome post!

Paul

[sylarrr]

Originally Posted by thebitbotdotcom

Wow. That is why I am increasingly avoiding link building services of any type.

thatsway I am avoiding all bhat methods.

[cashcow]

Originally Posted by CDarklock

At Microsoft, we used a 3D scale. This is massively oversimplified, because I can't tell you the real details.

Imagine that the web is a cube. Your SERP is somewhere on the height of the cube. Your search volume - the number of queries you rank for - is somewhere on the width. And your clickthru, how many people click your entry, is a position in the depth of the cube.

This identifies each and every website as a point in three-dimensional space.

Now imagine that every test the search engine can run on your website is a smaller cube, inside the large cube of the web. If your website is inside that cube, the test is run on your site.

Here's where things get interesting.

If your site scores extremely well or extremely badly on a test, you can be pushed around in the rankings far enough to skip entire other tests.

When you build links fast, this is one way to score very well very quickly on some tests. But another test, higher up, tests something where you score very badly. In between the two tests, there is a test that would place you precisely where you ought to be in the rankings... but because you leapfrogged that test, it didn't get run.

There is a system in place to handle this, but it takes time. After a number of bounces past the middle test, you eventually do get that test run, and your position stabilises.

Hence the "dancing" behaviour people talk about.

Of course, we didn't use cubes at Microsoft. We used spheroids with more than three dimensions. The Pythagorean theorem can be extrapolated to any arbitrary number of dimensions for distance calculation, and polar coordinates make that easy to convert.

OMG... this actually makes sense to me....

[True Solution]

Brother the best place for you to do is check out Google. They have been making some changes to the way they do things, and realistically, the other search engines will soon copy (assuming you make efforts to rank high in them as well).

They key way of thinking right now is - Natural.

Everything has to appear good and honest.

Google has monitored a whole lot of websites for a long time now remember, they know what a genuine, if you will, website looks like - but I also believe there is a very powerful we can get arround this by using it (that's in testing and for another discussion).

For now - on your SEO efforts, read up on the newest methods of Google and focus on your keywords and your content.

Focus on keeping all linking natural and focus on ensuring you have a sweet site structure: About Page, Privacy Policy, Site Map, etc.

Perhaps it would also be worth while noting that I believe your traffic methods actually now are worth a lot more with the search engines.

Simply by using Smart, but profitable campaigns online and offline which perhaps you arn't using - which could help alot depending on what you are promoting - things like hosting stalls with events or refurbishments or services at charity events - investing a few hundred in a local leaflet distribution to post some flyers promoting you - to online events like genuine competitions with decent prizes, all on topic, and promoting "your thing" as well, perhaps as a sponsor?

When your linking is all coming from different places, covering different fields, you will not only have more traffic because of your efforts - but I believe you will also rank extremely well in the search engines as well.

Doing additionally well if your other online accounts (Facebook page, Youtube account, Blog, etc.) rank well in the search engines as well.


That's good advice for now brother, I'm doing a lot of work with search engines myself.

Peace,
Hakim
True Solution

[JohnMcCabe]

Originally Posted by cashcow

OMG... this actually makes sense to me....

Scary, isn't it?

Seriously, I haven't heard anyone mention multi-dimensional math and using polar coordinates, accurately, in years.

OMG, headache time - flashback to multivariate calculus...

[cashcow]

Originally Posted by JohnMcCabe

Scary, isn't it?

Seriously, I haven't heard anyone mention multi-dimensional math and using polar coordinates, accurately, in years.

OMG, headache time - flashback to multivariate calculus...

Yes, very.... I think I need a drink now.

[shuichi]

i'm sory, how do i know blog get sandbox. i don't understand anything about sandbox, what i hear sandbox will decreased index in google. sory for my bad english

[Karen Blundell]

Originally Posted by CDarklock

At Microsoft, we used a 3D scale. This is massively oversimplified, because I can't tell you the real details.

Imagine that the web is a cube. Your SERP is somewhere on the height of the cube. Your search volume - the number of queries you rank for - is somewhere on the width. And your clickthru, how many people click your entry, is a position in the depth of the cube.

This identifies each and every website as a point in three-dimensional space.

Now imagine that every test the search engine can run on your website is a smaller cube, inside the large cube of the web. If your website is inside that cube, the test is run on your site.

Here's where things get interesting.

If your site scores extremely well or extremely badly on a test, you can be pushed around in the rankings far enough to skip entire other tests.

When you build links fast, this is one way to score very well very quickly on some tests. But another test, higher up, tests something where you score very badly. In between the two tests, there is a test that would place you precisely where you ought to be in the rankings... but because you leapfrogged that test, it didn't get run.

There is a system in place to handle this, but it takes time. After a number of bounces past the middle test, you eventually do get that test run, and your position stabilises.

Hence the "dancing" behaviour people talk about.

Of course, we didn't use cubes at Microsoft. We used spheroids with more than three dimensions. The Pythagorean theorem can be extrapolated to any arbitrary number of dimensions for distance calculation, and polar coordinates make that easy to convert.

perfect analogy! thanks for this

[mattyttv]

Originally Posted by WillR

My question would be, do you have Google Analytics installed on these sites?

sure do, traffic was going up, nearly doubled, then dropped with in 1 day

[mattyttv]

thanks for that, i sort of figure they are getting smarter than me!

[mattyttv]

Originally Posted by WillR

The biggest thing you are all missing here is TRAFFIC.

The problem is you are building a lot of links to your sites in a short period of time. Guess what? This DOES actually happen sometimes to websites naturally. A new site will come online, catch on, and go viral. All of a sudden this site ends up with a whole lot of links in a short period of time.

But will this site get banned or sent to the sandbox? No.

Because the other half of the puzzle is traffic. Use some common sense. If a site starts getting a whole lot of links to it but has little to none traffic, how on earth could those links have appeared naturally? How on earth can or would someone link to a site they haven't even visited.

Imagine you are Google and you see this. A site has 400 new backlinks from 400 different urls. The site has had 50 visitors in total since it went online. You do the maths. Does that look very natural to you? If so, keep doing it and keep wondering why your sites end up sandboxed.

I agree, but in this case it was 8 links from Web 2.0 sites, 20 Social BMarks and 5 blog comments over 30 days!

[sparckyz]

Originally Posted by CDarklock

At Microsoft, we used a 3D scale. This is massively oversimplified, because I can't tell you the real details.

Imagine that the web is a cube. Your SERP is somewhere on the height of the cube. Your search volume - the number of queries you rank for - is somewhere on the width. And your clickthru, how many people click your entry, is a position in the depth of the cube.

This identifies each and every website as a point in three-dimensional space.

Now imagine that every test the search engine can run on your website is a smaller cube, inside the large cube of the web. If your website is inside that cube, the test is run on your site.

Here's where things get interesting.

If your site scores extremely well or extremely badly on a test, you can be pushed around in the rankings far enough to skip entire other tests.

When you build links fast, this is one way to score very well very quickly on some tests. But another test, higher up, tests something where you score very badly. In between the two tests, there is a test that would place you precisely where you ought to be in the rankings... but because you leapfrogged that test, it didn't get run.

There is a system in place to handle this, but it takes time. After a number of bounces past the middle test, you eventually do get that test run, and your position stabilises.

Hence the "dancing" behaviour people talk about.

Of course, we didn't use cubes at Microsoft. We used spheroids with more than three dimensions. The Pythagorean theorem can be extrapolated to any arbitrary number of dimensions for distance calculation, and polar coordinates make that easy to convert.

OMG, I think i actually understood that Great Imagary to visualize...

[mattyttv]

Originally Posted by shuichi

i'm sory, how do i know blog get sandbox. i don't understand anything about sandbox, what i hear sandbox will decreased index in google. sory for my bad english

the sandbox is like saying your site gets buried for some time until google feels like releasing it.

[blue_sky]

Originally Posted by mattyttv

12 - bought 5 High PR blog comments from FreeTrafficSystem.com to my main URL

I was on Pos 11 when a site recently disappeared into oblivion - yep I bought some blog comments (different network) too..
I had the "feeling" it could be somehow related...

but since I am a very generous person
I am going to buy some blog comments for the sites (not in my possesion) ranking Top 1-10 to see if I can repeat that effect...

if this is really the case that would be great news for all of us....:-))))

[Opportunex]

Originally Posted by CDarklock

At Microsoft, we used a 3D scale. This is massively oversimplified, because I can't tell you the real details.

Imagine that the web is a cube. Your SERP is somewhere on the height of the cube. Your search volume - the number of queries you rank for - is somewhere on the width. And your clickthru, how many people click your entry, is a position in the depth of the cube.

This identifies each and every website as a point in three-dimensional space.

Now imagine that every test the search engine can run on your website is a smaller cube, inside the large cube of the web. If your website is inside that cube, the test is run on your site.

Here's where things get interesting.

If your site scores extremely well or extremely badly on a test, you can be pushed around in the rankings far enough to skip entire other tests.

When you build links fast, this is one way to score very well very quickly on some tests. But another test, higher up, tests something where you score very badly. In between the two tests, there is a test that would place you precisely where you ought to be in the rankings... but because you leapfrogged that test, it didn't get run.

There is a system in place to handle this, but it takes time. After a number of bounces past the middle test, you eventually do get that test run, and your position stabilises.

Hence the "dancing" behaviour people talk about.

Of course, we didn't use cubes at Microsoft. We used spheroids with more than three dimensions. The Pythagorean theorem can be extrapolated to any arbitrary number of dimensions for distance calculation, and polar coordinates make that easy to convert.

Of course. Exactly what I was going to say but CD beat me to it.

BTW CD, what does all that stuff mean?