Showing that getting lots of backlinks does not get you sandboxed

[hustlinsmoke]

Okay here is my problem. I have been in a few heated discussions here on why about a dozen of my sites were sandboxed last year.

I had used a program to get backlinks and everyone said it was because of that.

Now if that's the case then that means I can use the program on any competitor's site and get there site deindexed. We would have mass deindexing. I could wipe out half of the internet in a matter of months.

So who ever supports this theory let me know why you would think this when Like I said I could use the program for blackhat and get all the top gurus sites taken off of google.

Also for the ones that stand by me, is my theory rational.

[trexpro]

Google is NASA smart and they've took so many precautions to make sure their system is not abused, so I do not believe you could actually get sandboxed by mass backlinking.

Hasn't Google publicly said before that back-linking could not hurt your rankings? Correct me if I'm wrong.

[Matt Red]

On another forum there was a case study, and bascially this guy mass backlinked his website to see what would happen. 100k xrumer blast with porn anchor text, another 50k scrapebox blasts, etc.... and a whole bunch of random links.

In the end, the website flucuated for a while and just went right back to where it started. It was only a one case senario, but this might be what google does...

[hustlinsmoke]

Thank you and thank you, and here I was just repeating what I had heard. I have misinformed alot of people. I do not think we will ever know how google ranks backlinks, weather its where the link is or how many or how few.

I do not see it possible to get sandboxed for too many links too fast though. Since I could do that to anyone's site to make them a less competing website.

[dp40oz]

No you can't do it to every site but u can do it to some. Google will penalize for backlinks depending on site age, authority, prior backlinking profile ect... If all u have is spammy links and a young site then backlinks will get u penalized. If you have a solid trust score google will just devalue the links but not penalize. The reason it's hard to penalize your competitors through backlinks is because usually a page you'd care to penalize is ranking high... Hence a solid trust score.

[hustlinsmoke]

Originally Posted by dp40oz

No you can't do it to every site but u can do it to some. Google will penalize for backlinks depending on site age, authority, prior backlinking profile ect... If all u have is spammy links and a young site then backlinks will get u penalized. If you have a solid trust score google will just devalue the links but not penalize. The reason it's hard to penalize your competitors through backlinks is because usually a page you'd care to penalize is ranking high... Hence a solid trust score.

Now that makes more sense to me. Thank you.

[3000]

I agree with dp40oz. My views about this subject is the same.

Another way to think about it is why would a 1 week old site, with 5 pages of content have thousands of links?

It doesn't look natural.

[4morereferrals]

Most backlink tools also end up getting you a penalty for anchor text over optimization as well - if not managed correctly.

I can also assure you from personal experience with my own sites and testing on competitors - that xrumer and scrapebox combined in a large scale concentrated effort can and will get sites sent to SERP purgatory ...

Now, you indicate de indexing your competitors - that likely wont happen. But a -50 / -100 / -1000 penalty has been produced with the above nasty link building methods. If thats how you define "sandbox".

It took many months but most of them do and will come back. Not usually to their former glory though either.

Youre likely not going to negatively affect [ too greatly - for very long ] an old established site with an already aged link profile.

Originally Posted by hustlinsmoke

Okay here is my problem. I have been in a few heated discussions here on why about a dozen of my sites were sandboxed last year.

I had used a program to get backlinks and everyone said it was because of that.

Now if that's the case then that means I can use the program on any competitor's site and get there site deindexed. We would have mass deindexing. I could wipe out half of the internet in a matter of months.

So who ever supports this theory let me know why you would think this when Like I said I could use the program for blackhat and get all the top gurus sites taken off of google.

Also for the ones that stand by me, is my theory rational.

[GetKane]

Originally Posted by trexpro

Google is NASA smart and they've took so many precautions to make sure their system is not abused, so I do not believe you could actually get sandboxed by mass backlinking.

Hasn't Google publicly said before that back-linking could not hurt your rankings? Correct me if I'm wrong.

Google has said that, but anyone that listens to everything Matt Cutts says would only rank on Bing. lol

I've seen new sites drop like flies for taking too many crappy links too fast. Usually older and established sites suck them in like that Xmen character that gets stronger no matter what you throw at him.

[hustlinsmoke]

Now see all this makes sense.
1. I had only quality links. I mean everything related and on .edu and .gov and pr6 up.
2. My sites were all a week to a month old.
3. I had all of them on one ip which I have learned is stupid.
Just so you know if you get tagged for something on google like for blackhat, the whole ip usually is affected.
4. I did not use 1,000's of links but did get about close to 500.

I only had one site there that I wanted to keep in good standing. I have did nothing with it since then.

None of my links show on google, 17 show on Yahoo. All links show on link tools.

How should I do it now. Since the site is over a year old can I blast some quality links in low volume or even just like five a day.

Thank you for all your help wf members.

[vvsingh]

Since you can not control other from linking to your site, Google rarely penalizes a site merely for back links. In most cases It devalues those links. You can face penalty for adopting any black hat SEO technique in On-page but rarely only for back links except in case your domain is quite young.

[snhostsn]

I agree with dp40oz. In the last year Google has changed their stance on whether or not a backlink can hurt you. If a site is new, or had previously little activity, a backlink profile of questionable links can severely hurt the sites ability to rank. In my experience this is a new development and something Google is being more aggressive about. I think they believe that their new openness in webmaster tools helps counterbalance this.

[deaddogdesign]

My theory is aggressive, non natural link building will through off the algo for a short period of time based on the sites age, quality, ect. I agree that xrummer and scrapebox on highly established sites will be able to survive bigger blast, but newer sites need to have a good foundation of good quality backlinks to even be considered an authority in your niche.

I think aggressive backlink building is a myth and it defeats the whole purpose of going viral. True you might bounce down in the rankings for awhile but eventually you will come back to the same spot. I wouldn't use to many programs for backlinks and I think you should really consider your backlink velocity. If you can only build a backlink a day do that, but don't build 5,000 backlinks in a day and call it quits and wonder why your site got dropped and may or may not ever come back.