Sandbox, De-Indexing, Penalties and Google Dance.

[Tony Marriott]

There’s a lot of debate and misconception over sandbox, de-indexing and Google dance. Actually every answer you get will be someone’s opinion as not all this information is publicly available from Google. It's made up from personal experiences, testing, hearsay and interpretation of Google publications and comments.

That said here is my best interpretation of it all. It should help put it into some kind of context at least.

Google Dance

A general, unexpected change, or multiple changes in your search result position. Can happen daily, can last for weeks, can have very severe swings . For more mature sites it is assumed to be Google making changes to the algorithm that may not always be successful. Further, multiple minor adjustment occur as Google get it right.

For new sites it is likely that the Algorithm is very different to mature sites. Initially google will only have on-page SEO to measure and it seems to give an initial boost to new sites to give them exposure and be in a position to start getting natural links. As the site gets over few weeks old then the Algo changes and off-page SEO becomes more important. During this period a web site's search position can be very volatile.

Sandbox

This is one that seems to have the least information and the most confusion. From what I have read and from my own experience it seems that “fairly new” sites can get “sandboxed”. This is NOT de-indexed but may be very low or even nowhere in the search results. You may see some long tail/related keywords ranking but generally nothing. This may last 3 months or so.

My best guess is that Google sees something it is not happy about with the site i.e. unnatural backlinking and so puts it “on-hold”. That is likely to be some overzealous link building where the issue is transitory and so a “time -out” will naturally resolve the issue

As this period is quite long it can be difficult to know if your site is sandboxed or penalized (see Algorithm Change below). So it may be worth treating it as penalized.

Penalized

The results of being penalized will seem to be exactly as sandboxed but you have a “penalty” for misbehaving that will stick. Maybe linked to some very bad sites, massive abuse of backlinking “rules” etc. If you know you've been a bad boy then fix the issues and apply for re-instatement as in de-indexed (What To Do?)

De-Indexed

A brand new site will of course not be indexed but by adding a few links, a sitemap and few social bookmarks you should get your site indexed in a few days. People saying they cannot get indexed in weeks or months are either doing something VERY wrong or have actually been de-indexed.

If you were indexed and then find you are no-longer indexed then you have been de-indexed.

Type “site:yoursite.com” into Google search. If you get no results then you have been de-indexed.

This will only happen if you have done something really bad in Google's eyes. Which could be almost anything.

Algorithm Change

There is one final option and that is that you site could be “dropped” in the search results due to a “correct“ algorithm change. This would be a permanent change. I.e the Recent Panda/Farmer updates saw many article sites and derivatives drop dramatically in the search results.

What To Do?

If it's Google dance or sandbox then it's general just a matter of being patient. It may be worth still adding a steady flow (not blasting) of backlinks to the site during this period and you are likely to see higher results than before once you come out the other side.

If It's a permanent change in results then you will need to look at what the new algorithm is targeting and change your site to better fit the new “rules”.

If you have been de-indexed all may not be lost. If your site was earning good money then it will be worth “fixing” your issues and asking google to re-instate you in their good grace. There is an application form for this, and instructions you can find in webmaster tools. Google seem to have a “confession is good for your soul” approach and expect you to come clean about any indiscretions. In fact it may be advantageous to do so as it shows you have fixed things and are now “good guy”.

On the other hand if it was not making much many anyway you may be best to simply scrap the website and get rid of the domain name (wash your hands of the whole thing). That way at least you won't be associated with a “bad” site as that may actually effect your other or future sites.

Webmaster Tools

If you haven't already done so then sign up and register your sites with Google Webmaster tools. That way you may even get some information on problems with your website. For instance if your site gets infected with Malware then Google will certainly penalise or de-index your site. If you are register with Webmaster tools you will get notification and instructions on how to fix it. See

Cleaning your site - Webmaster Tools Help

If you want to ask Google to review your website and get any penalties or de-indexing lifted then use the following form

https://www.google.com/webmasters/to...deration?pli=1

It's pretty much a freehand form and the best way to complete it is to list all the quality guidelines and the points mentioned at the top of the form

https://www.google.com/support/webma...er=35769&hl=en

Under each heading explain how you have reviewed for compliance or found non-compliance and how you fixed it.

You will not get a reply, you will not get confirmation of re-instatement, you will not get a rejection notice and you will not get any help or discussion. So get the form right first time and cover everything. If successful you will see your site re-appear or improve in the search results.

[CoolCaesar]

You've provided some great info here Tony, people should have a much better view on these topics once they've read this.

I've had a few sites penalized by google over the time.

However, I've never tried to "confess" myself.. I just concentrate on the other projects

Who knows maybe I'll try it one day

[Phill P]

I got a site which was doing nothing, then I did some back linking (paid article submission service), the site had a large spike in traffic for a few days (and made some coin too) but then died just as quickly and remained that way for the 2 weeks since.

Sandboxed? How do you find out for sure?

[CoolCaesar]

Originally Posted by Phill P

I got a site which was doing nothing, then I did some back linking (paid article submission service), the site had a large spike in traffic for a few days (and made some coin too) but then died just as quickly and remained that way for the 2 weeks since.

Sandboxed? How do you find out for sure?

It's the google panda update that messed your rankings up .. forget about spinned articles submission!

[Moondive]

This is really great info.Thanks for sharing

[Adsman68]

where exactly do you find the hta access code in wordpress ?

[JRemington]

I especially needed this, so appreciate it a lot!

I re-submitted my site to Google after a 90% dip in traffic and they told me nothing was wrong with it. Do you think the traffic will come back up again soon?

[benhussian]

Great info Mate, You rock

[Tony Marriott]

Originally Posted by cosmokid

Thanks for this post, Tony.

Another big factor I've found with my sites is getting an htaccess redirect set up IMMEDIATELY when I'm launching to tell the search engines whether I want http://mysite.com indexed or http://www.mysite.com indexed. I always build backlinks using www.mysite.com so I want Google to index that as my domain url instead of the http://mysite.com version.

If you're using Google analytics you need to "Add" both versions of your site, verify ownership of each, and then go back into that part of your analytics dashboard and select whichever url version you want Google to use as your primary domain. At the same time, you should add a 301 redirect to your htaccess file on your website redirecting the http://mysite.com version to http://www.mysite.com (or vice versa if you want the mysite.com site to be your primary url.)

That way, from the moment your site is up, you have everything in place to give search engines the best possibility to get your site indexed correctly.

If your site is constructed in plain html (not using Wordpress) you'd add this code to your htaccess file:

RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^mysite.com
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.mysite.com/$1 [L,R=301]

(This redirects http://mysite.com to http://www.mysite.com; reverse it if you want the http://mysite.com to be indexed as your primary url.)

In Wordpress the default htaccess code is a little different. You're going to see this - I've added the two lines in below (see bolded text) where you insert the redirect information:

#Wordpress
<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteRule ^index.php$ - [L]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule . /index.php [L]
</IfModule>

# BEGIN WordPress
<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^mysite.com [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.mysite.com/$1 [L,R=301]
RewriteBase /
RewriteRule ^index.php$ - [L]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule . /index.php [L]
</IfModule>

Again, this is what you put in if you want www.mysite.com as your primary url to be indexed; switch the two if you want http://mysite.com as your main url.

Yes, It si important to standardise your domain url (with ot without WWW). Personally I always go for with. The main point is to be consistant.

Google apears to see www.yoursite.com as different from yoursite.com. This is certainly true for a new site. The downside of this comes when you build links. As Google appears will give the link power seperately. I.e it will rank www.yoursite and yoursite seperately depending on the links to each.

Longer term I think this sorts itself out but it does seem to impact new sites.

Some Wordpress installers (Fantastico) will use "without www" by default so it is a good practice to go into

settings/general

and check/add in www. Keep all your sites the same then you will have only one process for backlinking and no confusion.

[Phill P]

Originally Posted by CoolCaesar

It's the google panda update that messed your rankings up .. forget about spinned articles submission!

I had a few articles for different websites done.

One had a large spike then crashed, another had a small increase then seems to have decreased but not as dramatically as the previous site, and a third has been getting a steady and noticeable increase for the past few weeks which is what I expected.

Could just be the third site is in a better niche and better SEO, but assuming at least the first one is sandboxed how do you find out? You say wait a month or two, but is there some way to ensure it doesn't happen again? Add more unique content?? I'll be doing this anyway but spending time and money on a dead site doesn't feel natural

[CoolCaesar]

Originally Posted by Phill P

I had a few articles for different websites done.

One had a large spike then crashed, another had a small increase then seems to have decreased but not as dramatically as the previous site, and a third has been getting a steady and noticeable increase for the past few weeks which is what I expected.

Could just be the third site is in a better niche and better SEO, but assuming at least the first one is sandboxed how do you find out? You say wait a month or two, but is there some way to ensure it doesn't happen again? Add more unique content?? I'll be doing this anyway but spending time and money on a dead site doesn't feel natural

Add more unique content of course .. and start building high quality backlinks .. forget about stuff like scrapebox or amr or any other spinned articles automatic submitter.

I have spent spent thousands of dollars trying to test every single crap available.

The best links that google adores are ones coming from unique articles on wordpress blogs!