My First Site Got Sandboxed!

[BobTheAutomator]

Well, just checked my google ranks this morning and to my surprise, gone they were, I had about 7 keywords ranked in the top 20 and 5 in the top 10, my highest being 3rd. Today all of them are ranked 500-700.

My site was launched a month ago to this date and i have been posting a new unique content article 3 times a week and doing some mild backlinking at the end of the week for each article, Ive been using Authority Link Network, Social Monkee, making a few facebook posts and some social bookmarking posts but nothing black hat at all.

I guess im curious if most new sites go through this, and If I should count on coming back with good rank if I keep building backlinks and give it time.

I know this topic is beat to death and there is much speculation about the big G. I'm just curious your guys thoughts. Has this happened to any of your sites? how long did it take you to come back? What methods did you use? Any comments or help would be much appreciated.

-Bob

[DeskCoder]

Same with me! I had 6 keywords all between 1st and 3rd page, and today they are all gone. Best part, it's a diet niche, and I made some sweet money yesterday, but of course, nothing today. My page is still in the index, just gone for all the keywords.

Nothing in Google Webmasters either.

[BobTheAutomator]

Originally Posted by DeskCoder

Same with me! I had 6 keywords all between 1st and 3rd page, and today they are all gone. Best part, it's a diet niche, and I made some sweet money yesterday, but of course, nothing today. My page is still in the index, just gone for all the keywords.

Nothing in Google Webmasters either.

Do you mean your sites are gone from google webmaster tools, or just no further information about it?

My site is still indexed and still appears in GWT just got bombed on ranking

[Torreylee]

There is no standard rule as to how long you are sandboxed and how badly. As long as your site is still indexed you are in position to bring it back. DON'T STOP BACKLINKING, this is the reason why some site die forever. People get scared that the site dipped and do nothing. Bad move, keep SEOing it on and offsite diligently if it's important to you, it will come back to some degree if not stronger. But never give up on it if it has value and converts!

[BobTheAutomator]

Thanks for the advice, I guess another question I have is, why did google sandbox me in the first place, im not using any "blackhat" techniques, are ALN, social monkee, build my rank and stuff like that considered "blackhat"?

[BobTheAutomator]

Originally Posted by Paul Gram

The Google sandbox is a myth.

Care to expound on that a little? To me something talked about as much as it is on every IM forum means that there must be some truth to it. What is your explanation of what happened to my site then?

[twotoofs]

The actual sandbox is probably a myth. The ideas and processes that people call the sandbox are not a myth. If they were a myth, sites wouldn't have the rug pulled out from under them like this. I've had more of my sites go thru this than sites that didn't. A couple pulled out of it but more stayed buried. The last one happened when I built 2 links to it. It was the site I was most excited about, too.

[seo999]

I personally think the sandbox is a myth too.

I believe the "Google Dance" is more likely what you are encountering. When you start a new website Google has to determine where to place you in the results. So at first, you will see your pages moving around a bit until Google is happy with where you are positioned.

At first you may see your webpages on 3rd, 2nd or even on the 1st pages but this is probably only the "Google Dance" and is not your true position. When the Google dance settles after a month or two some sites/pages will drop drastically and many people presume it is the so called "Sandbox".

The chances are that your overall SEO is not good enough to warrant a position that you first encounter with the Google dance. I think if you concentrate on building more quality links with anchor text for your keywords you will soon shoot back in the results. That is assuming all of the SEO work has already been done.

Just my 0.2 cents worth.

[dp40oz]

Originally Posted by BobTheAutomator

Thanks for the advice, I guess another question I have is, why did google sandbox me in the first place, im not using any "BlueFart" techniques, are ALN, social monkee, build my rank and stuff like that considered "BlueFart"?

All of those would be considered Blackh@t.

[BobTheAutomator]

Originally Posted by dp40oz

All of those would be considered Blackh@t.

I just see every other thread on here talking about how great BMR is, and I never really considered warrior forums a "blackh@t" users forums. So basically to stay completely legit i have to just do article marketing (which i also do) and tons and tons of forum posts?

[dp40oz]

Originally Posted by Paul Gram

There is absolutely nothing wrong with using BMR or other blog networks to build links, nothing unethical about it.

BMR is an amazing ranking tool, just as is ALN. But don't fool yourself into thinking its perfectly fine with Google. Blog networks are all blackh@t. Now the real question is do you care? I for one don't. Beating Google's algorithm is not against the law and I'll continue to do it as long as what I do works. But please please please don't fool yourself into thinking these methods are safe and fine with google. This is straight from Google.

"Avoid tricks intended to improve search engine rankings. A good rule of thumb is whether you'd feel comfortable explaining what you've done to a website that competes with you. Another useful test is to ask, "Does this help my users? Would I do this if search engines didn't exist?"

Don't participate in link schemes designed to increase your site's ranking or PageRank. In particular, avoid links to web spammers or "bad neighborhoods" on the web, as your own ranking may be affected adversely by those links."

[dp40oz]

Originally Posted by BobTheAutomator

I just see every other thread on here talking about how great BMR is, and I never really considered warrior forums a "blackh@t" users forums. So basically to stay completely legit i have to just do article marketing (which i also do) and tons and tons of forum posts?

Warriorforum is a discussion forum intended to help people make money online. Theres nothing about it that claims that everything said within the site is all fine and dandy with Google or any other organization.

BMR is great. When you know how to use it, its the best ranking tool out there. If you want to play the Google game straight up though then talk to Yukon. He's a big contributor around here that has had a lot of success "playing by the rules" so to speak. I on the other hand like to preach the virtues of beating Google's algorithm by any means necessary.

[BobTheAutomator]

Originally Posted by dp40oz

BMR is an amazing ranking tool, just as is ALN. But don't fool yourself into thinking its perfectly fine with Google. Blog networks are all blackh@t. Now the real question is do you care? I for one don't. Beating Google's algorithm is not against the law and I'll continue to do it as long as what I do works. But please please please don't fool yourself into thinking these methods are safe and fine with google. This is straight from Google.

"Avoid tricks intended to improve search engine rankings. A good rule of thumb is whether you'd feel comfortable explaining what you've done to a website that competes with you. Another useful test is to ask, "Does this help my users? Would I do this if search engines didn't exist?"

Don't participate in link schemes designed to increase your site's ranking or PageRank. In particular, avoid links to web spammers or "bad neighborhoods" on the web, as your own ranking may be affected adversely by those links."

I agree with this, the way I look at it, I could go to tons of sites, do guest postings, do every backlink by hand and do it "by the book", but what If i hired people do this for me, would that be legit? I look at services like BMR and ALN as just me hiring people to do my SEO work, its going to get done either way, just a different vehicle. Is one way more legit then the other, it all depends on how you look at it. Our goal is to drive traffic to the site to get clicks and make money plain and simple. I never make sites without unique content and I always ask myself, "if the user searched for my keyword and I was number 1, would they find the answers they are looking for?" I always make sure that answer is yes, when it all comes down to it, who cares how it gets to the front page as long as its good content. </mini rant>

[DeskCoder]

Originally Posted by BobTheAutomator

Do you mean your sites are gone from google webmaster tools, or just no further information about it?

My site is still indexed and still appears in GWT just got bombed on ranking

Site is still in GWT tools ... just no information on where my 1 page is in the SERPs.

It's just one page that dropped from SERPs, but when I search for my site "site:domain.com", it shows up. I gotta figure this out ... my income is gone!

[Torreylee]

Originally Posted by DeskCoder

Site is still in GWT tools ... just no information on where my 1 page is in the SERPs.

It's just one page that dropped from SERPs, but when I search for my site "site:domain.com", it shows up. I gotta figure this out ... my income is gone!

The good news is that your site is indexed and THAT is major. So you have just been shuffled around, not banned by any means.

You have to remember that Google doesn't owe any of us our SERP positions, they are in the business of making THEMSELVES money, not us.

After panda, our sites are being judged more heavily in regard to visitor interaction with our sites. Factors such as time on site, page click-throughs, bounce-rate, interaction with polls and such.

Backlinking still plays a major role in ranking, but now it's PART of the equation, not the entire answer.

Some things you can do is first look at how you can make your website more STICKY, increase value for your readers. Add relevant videos to keep them onsite longer, add personality to your site by adding human faces and names along with experiences. People connect with people, not entities like "websites".

Above all, keep working on your site faithfully. Don't get discouraged!

[Royalking]

Originally Posted by BobTheAutomator

Well, just checked my google ranks this morning and to my surprise, gone they were, I had about 7 keywords ranked in the top 20 and 5 in the top 10, my highest being 3rd. Today all of them are ranked 500-700.

My site was launched a month ago to this date and i have been posting a new unique content article 3 times a week and doing some mild backlinking at the end of the week for each article, Ive been using Authority Link Network, Social Monkee, making a few facebook posts and some social bookmarking posts but nothing black hat at all.

I guess im curious if most new sites go through this, and If I should count on coming back with good rank if I keep building backlinks and give it time.

I know this topic is beat to death and there is much speculation about the big G. I'm just curious your guys thoughts. Has this happened to any of your sites? how long did it take you to come back? What methods did you use? Any comments or help would be much appreciated.

-Bob

Had faced a similar situation in november to one of my sites but i kept adding content as usual and did my backlinking with more anchor text variation, within 3 weeks i started getting those rankings back one by one so don't worry its a common thing in some of the tough competition niches.

[dburk]

Hi Bob,

Congratulations, you are the latest contestant to play the "I got fooled by QDF" game.

What happened to your web page rankings has been reported at least 100 times in this forum. Nearly everyone asks the same thing "Has my site been Sandboxed?"

The answer is simply: No!

What you experienced was the temporary boost in rankings from the QDF feature of Google Search. Nearly every new page experiences this temporary boost. The fact that the temporary boost wears off, should not be confused with a penalty.

What happened was a good thing, you got a temporary boost. Be thankful.

[DeskCoder]

Originally Posted by dburk

Hi Bob,

Congratulations, you are the latest contestant to play the "I got fooled by QDF" game.

What happened to your web page rankings has been reported at least 100 times in this forum. Nearly everyone asks the same thing "Has my site been Sandboxed?"

The answer is simply: No!

What you experienced was the temporary boost in rankings from the QDF feature of Google Search. Nearly every new page experiences this temporary boost. The fact that the temporary boost wears off, should not be confused with a penalty.

What happened was a good thing, you got a temporary boost. Be thankful.

I can't speak for Bob, but my page did not get a temporary boost ... it's gone for all 6 of my keywords. The main keyword I am trying to rank for ... my page is not there out of the 857 pages (then Google gives me the duplicated link to include duplicate results). 3 of my other pages on my site rank for this keyword, but not the 1 "penalized" page.

[BobTheAutomator]

Originally Posted by Torreylee

The good news is that your site is indexed and THAT is major. So you have just been shuffled around, not banned by any means.

You have to remember that Google doesn't owe any of us our SERP positions, they are in the business of making THEMSELVES money, not us.

After panda, our sites are being judged more heavily in regard to visitor interaction with our sites. Factors such as time on site, page click-throughs, bounce-rate, interaction with polls and such.

Backlinking still plays a major role in ranking, but now it's PART of the equation, not the entire answer.

Some things you can do is first look at how you can make your website more STICKY, increase value for your readers. Add relevant videos to keep them onsite longer, add personality to your site by adding human faces and names along with experiences. People connect with people, not entities like "websites".

Above all, keep working on your site faithfully. Don't get discouraged!

2 days before the drop in ranks I submitted one of my articles to stumblupon which went viral and got me around 30,000 unique hits in about 6 days, which nuked my average time on site from about 8mins down to 16 seconds, do you think its possible this played a part it it?

[Torreylee]

Originally Posted by BobTheAutomator

2 days before the drop in ranks I submitted one of my articles to stumblupon which went viral and got me around 30,000 unique hits in about 6 days, which nuked my average time on site from about 8mins down to 16 seconds, do you think its possible this played a part it it?

WOW, well if people are only staying on your sites for an average of 16 seconds it going to be a MAJOR problem. Yes, I believe that played a huge part in your SERP drop.

Usually viral entities get inspected pretty thoroughly because they feature something that people find fascinating and don't quickly click away from, but instead watch longer, read thoroughly and share with others because of it's basic awesomeness.

May I ask what caused your page to go viral? And why do you think visitors left so soon?

Panda has changed the game, it is mimicking a manual review through gauging factors of visitor interaction. If a site is quality, it's usually "STICKY" and Panda is aimed at figuring these things into the algorithym piece by piece.

Doing things like adding relevant videos, polls and encouraging comments is great for stickiness. I love intensedebate.com they have a great platform for encouraging user interaction with each other, I have seen stagnant sites come to life after using it.

But that's only one suggestion...

[dburk]

Originally Posted by DeskCoder

I can't speak for Bob, but my page did not get a temporary boost ... it's gone for all 6 of my keywords. The main keyword I am trying to rank for ... my page is not there out of the 857 pages (then Google gives me the duplicated link to include duplicate results). 3 of my other pages on my site rank for this keyword, but not the 1 "penalized" page.

Hi DeskCoder,

Is that "penalized" page indexed?

If so then you are not penalized, you are not in the mythological "sandbox", you are simply experiencing the "duplicate content filter" or the filter that limits the number of pages that appear from the same website to ensure diversity in the SERP.

You can try adding the "&filter=0" parameter to the end of a Google web search URL to see additional results which might be similar. If the missing page in question appears with this parameter added then this tells you it is a filter, not a penalty.

[JeremiahSay]

Hello,

It's normal!! Everyone will encounter the same problem with a new site.. (anything less than 2 years is considered new) - Continue to add unique content and never stop your back-linking..

God bless you,
Jeremiah

[BobTheAutomator]

Originally Posted by Torreylee

WOW, well if people are only staying on your sites for an average of 16 seconds it going to be a MAJOR problem. Yes, I believe that played a huge part in your SERP drop.

Usually viral entities get inspected pretty thoroughly because they feature something that people find fascinating and don't quickly click away from, but instead watch longer, read thoroughly and share with others because of it's basic awesomeness.

May I ask what caused your page to go viral? And why do you think visitors left so soon?

Panda has changed the game, it is mimicking a manual review through gauging factors of visitor interaction. If a site is quality, it's usually "STICKY" and Panda is aimed at figuring these things into the algorithym piece by piece.

Doing things like adding relevant videos, polls and encouraging comments is great for stickiness. I love intensedebate.com they have a great platform for encouraging user interaction with each other, I have seen stagnant sites come to life after using it.

But that's only one suggestion...

If you have never used stumbleupon.com before, an 8 second average time on site is very normal, its completely random traffic. As far as how it went viral i just wrote an interesting article and I got lucky basically.

[solado]

I am also sitting in this boat for the sinking website ranking - I had a website on the front page of google for a keyword for 3 days then it sank away and i cant even find it on page 1-20, so i assume its been nuked.

All articles are unique, SEO optimized, backlinks were consitant with no foul play. Starting to think google are onto us.

[Dmreed4311]

Was this an adsence site?

[dburk]

Originally Posted by solado

I am also sitting in this boat for the sinking website ranking - I had a website on the front page of google for a keyword for 3 days then it sank away and i cant even find it on page 1-20, so i assume its been nuked.

All articles are unique, SEO optimized, backlinks were consitant with no foul play. Starting to think google are onto us.

Hi solado,

Instead of assuming it's been "nuked", you should assume the far more likely scenario of a temporary boost from the QDF feature of Google.

[solado]

Originally Posted by dburk

Hi solado,

Instead of assuming it's been "nuked", you should assume the far more likely scenario of a temporary boost from the QDF feature of Google.

I dont believe this was part of the QDF - I have experianced the QDF on one of my websites where it dropped to page 7 and backlinking brought it up the ranks and adding content, this niche site that got dropped completly it's in a very low competition zone, literly PR 0 - 1 on index front page and 1,000 exact searches. At page 3 you start to see very low quality websites that google has just scraped for the keywords and in most cases dont have the keywords in at all.

I could be wrong being a novice in this game, but something just doesn't feel right for this - Could even by the fiverr link wheel backlink service i got backfired.

[onegoodman]

usually the sandbox takes you on hold 3 months.

I would say work normally in making organic SEO. Your effort will not go away, and you will get ranked back once you are out of that box on no time.

[Torreylee]

Originally Posted by solado

I am also sitting in this boat for the sinking website ranking - I had a website on the front page of
google for a keyword for 3 days then it sank away and i cant even find it on page 1-20, so i assume its been nuked.

All articles are unique, SEO optimized, backlinks were consitant with no foul play. Starting to think google are onto us.

Google makes algorithym changes daily, from what you say you've done with your website, I HIGHLY doubt you've been "nuked".

Is it still in the index? If so, keep building content. You don't need to be ranked first for 1 major KW to pull traffic.

Keep adding more and more quality content and pull longtail traffic to make up for whats loss at the moent from not being first-paged for 1 big KW. Sometimes sites drop, sometimes they jump, its not always a penalty or a bonus. Sometimes its just a machine doing machine-type things.

I've had sites drop 10 pages or more, I continued whatever I was doing to get it front-paged in the first place and 2 months later it came back. I've had some that I didn't care about and simply left it to die and they have returned to the front page. Google doesn't guarantee us any placement positions, we have to keep moving forward and continue building your portfolio of sites so that when one is going down another two are coming up in the SERPs.

[IMSince2003]

If your site was over a year old and it disappeared from the first 1,000 results, then I would say you got penalized. As others have pointed out, Google gives a temporary boost to new sites while it figures out where they should initially be ranked. Sometimes, it seems completely random because you may see really bad websites ranked better than your own even with no apparent backlinks. This is the way of the search engine and that's why you must diversify and as we've all seen elsewhere on this forum, you should seek to capture each visitor and make them part of your list or a repeat visitor.

[senukeservices]

usually sites get " disappeared2 before a mayor boost in rankings, specially if they are too new, and they are breaking the page 1 limit. Dont give up.
Just go on with your seo efforts and your site will eventually appear with better rankings

[chuckincw]

I have had sites disappear disappointingly from page one just like yours, and because I continued to do my backlinking the site would reappear a few months later and stick. If you believe in the site, keep at it and it will be back.

[JasonB]

Hey Bob...

The first thing you need to understand is that there is NO SUCH THING as a "SANDBOX"..... unless you bought one or made one...LOL

If there is or was something like that or similar to what everyone thinks it is, you could call it the "SPAMBOX" instead..

There might be something that behaves like what you think a "SANDBOX" is, but it has to do with only the ALGO, and they (Google) didn't build or create something per say, to do these things.

All this so-called "sandbox" is; is just A LOT of internet marketers that don’t really understand how google ranks and/or filters pages/sites, so when one of these sites (or yours for example) gets bombed or does not preform as well as one would want them to, it's really really easy to call it, "My SITE HAS BEEN SANDBOXED".

Was there any particular SPAMMING going on that you didn't know of, or weren't aware of?

GC

BTW...PM me your site's info and I will check it out for you and see what I can come up with.

[Torreylee]

Originally Posted by GuruCreation

Hey Bob...

The first thing you need to understand is that there is NO SUCH THING as a "SANDBOX"..... unless you bought one or made one...LOL

If there is or was something like that or similar to what everyone thinks it is, you could call it the "SPAMBOX" instead..

There might be something that behaves like what you think a "SANDBOX" is, but it has to do with only the ALGO, and they (Google) didn't build or create something per say, to do these things.

All this so-called "sandbox" is; is just A LOT of internet marketers that don’t really understand how google ranks and/or filters pages/sites, so when one of these sites (or yours for example) gets bombed or does not preform as well as one would want them to, it's really really easy to call it, "My SITE HAS BEEN SANDBOXED".

Spot on my man. I have long given up this fight and argument but I am wholeheartedly in agreement. It truly is a lack of understanding of how Google and the other search engines work. I know what people are saying when they believe they been "sandboxed" and so I play along, but site rank high and low, rise and drop because of relevancy to what Google thinks is most beneficial to their customers.

If I'm sitting at 5, and within a month 20 sites improved far more than mine and push past me and drop my down to 25 or lower am I sandboxed? No. I'm not doing what it takes to get and STAY ranked. It's really that simple.

[jordyhill]

Not sure about the legendary "sandbox", Nearly every site I've built has climbed high only to disappear into the page 30+ abyss. They've always come back again though.

I found adding relevant videos helps keep visitors on your page. People love videos. Fact.

[bigcat1967]

Your site is young - give it some time - it'll come back up.