Google, SEO and the sandbox theory

[Saidar]

Hello Warriors

Please help a noob out... I've been busy with a website for about two months now. My articles are really huge and some of the best on the net. My website: MartialArtsHeadquarters.net

My question: Has the Google sandbox theory been proven? For my site can nowhere be found for just about any keyword relating to martial arts. Not even in the top 1000. Now I've done a search for Martial Arts, the keyword that I'm chasing after, and of course I don't even appear in the top 1000. Now go and look at my site, then go and look at the martial art websites from search results 100 and on. Some of them don't even have the keyword martial arts in their heading or have any links to them! I don't have quality links, only about 6 'cause I hate link building and was hoping that links would appear naturally in time 'cause my articles are good.

My search engine traffic is about 12 a day but it's very long tail keywords, keywords that google don't care about.

Can someone explain this to me? Is it my website age? Did I do something wrong? Am I stupid? Please explain

Thanks

[bgmacaw]

Originally Posted by Saidar

I don't have quality links, only about 6 'cause I hate link building and was hoping that links would appear naturally in time 'cause my articles are good.

"Build it and they will come" only works in the movies. Lack of incoming links, in terms of quality and quantity, is one of your major problems.

[Matt Hoey]

I took this from ym blog - Yes there is a Google Sandbox but it's more appropriately called the Trustfilter.

-------------------------------

Being sandboxed myself I decided to research and write up some points I should follow for the future. I want to be seen by google as a good webmaster and I want them to trust me, this is what I found.

The Google algorithm has more than 100 factors which contribute to your SERPS, putting all your effort into one aspect will hold you back, literally. I read in one article recently that showed me we’ve built up a misconception that linkbuilding is what google wants us to do. By link building we’re all basically BlueFartters because we’ve been pulled into a world that accepts it as ok among webmasters, but this is not true for google. Personally, I will never stop linkbuilding, it’s a great technique but it’s not the only factor involved and it’s going against the grain of google’s trustfilter. Google’s own trustfilter or sandbox is what they use to stop spammy, unnatural websites in their tracks.


Varied source of Inbound links

You must be as natural as possible if you are going to build your own links. The best possible way I can think of is to write articles, I’m sure google loves articles with unique fresh content point back to your website because it enhances the users experience and it’s a relevant link. The other techniques such as blog commenting need to be like a tap that drips continuously. Use varied pen names, varied emails, varied anchor text pointing to varied pages, but personally mostly your main page.

What I’m starting to notice, is if you can gain a good trusted authority link on an aged webpage you website will see good results very quickly. I don’t know if this can affect a sandboxed website, my own experience had one of my websites plunged 100 places up out of the sandbox as soon as my PR4 .edu backlink appeared on my backlink checker, but like is ay, I can’t vouch for that being the case for certain. What I personally now believe is the idea of building “lots of backlinks” is not what we should be doing anymore. For some this may be nothing new, but I don’t think it is emphasized enough. I’m sure, in fact I’d take a $100 bet that if you use PR as an indication of a websites trust and you slowly build links from only PR4 websites and articles you could be in googles trusted zone a lot quicker than 90% of our seemingly current methods.

Elevating your SERPS through link building should be like a web, if you can imagine a spiders web where your website is the centre, each strand stretching out all around you would have post-it notes with your keywords reaching to websites within those keyword targeted SERPS linking back to you, above and below you. This web needs to extend outwards too, towards other websites which hold good content, I’m talking outbound links.

As I said previously, these are not the only factors, there are over 100 factors and I’m certain a lot are also in the pages of your website. Like Meta tags, fonts and content placement. So we can’t just build a crummy website and expect it to pass through google’s own trust filter flawlessly. I can imagine that no website can pass through it completely flawlessly. It’s possible we can create a no-so-hot website with some reprints and affiliate links which ranks fairly well but are you taking full advantage of google’s own trustfilter? Apparently, from the articles and research I’ve done, a website is placed in a kind of limbo for 6-18 months so google can decide if it can trust the website or not.

So instead of asking “how do I get my website out of the google sandbox?” we should ask “How do I get google to trust my website again?” Maybe if we did this, we would take a new perspective of google and how to rank.


Relevant outbound links

Relevant outbound links are something I’ve overlooked, I’ve never linked from my website unless I needed to and that’s an honest truth. It’s no secret that outbound links are a factor and are overlooked, at least by me. People do have the tendancy to overlook this and many other factors regarding them as “insignificant”, but when we sweep away the idea of the google sandbox and replace it with “trustfilter” we can now see what it is so important to link to other trusted websites. A web of trust.

I’m tired of writing now, discuss. From now on I will build my websites slowly, long term, so I can earn googles trust which I believe will propel my SERPS more than any one technique or special backlink technique.

I’ve left a few factors that contribute to trust which could be discussed,

Hope you found it useful.



Regular Unique content that enhances the user experience
Varied placement of content – avoid duplicate content on the same website
Properly siloed internal linking



Reference - "some important pages"
http://google-says.blogspot.com/2006...trust-now.html
Matt Cutts: Gadgets, Google, and SEO

[cosmokid]

In my experience you only get sandboxed if you're doing something "objectionable" in Google's eyes like getting way too many backlinks, too quickly. (Like thousands per month vs. hundreds per month.) That isn't your problem.

Your problem is most likely the lack of backlinks to your site and to your site's inner pages, plus the highly competitive nature of your category.

Don't give up, though! Of all the articles you have on your site, do some keyword research and find out how many competiting sites are competing for those keyphrases. Go to Google and type in your keyword in quotation marks "keyword" and see how many results come up. If there are more than about 50,000 competing sites it means that that keyword is going to take a lot of work if you want to get traffic to that particular article. So you should build backlinks from high page rank forums and blogs (with a Google page rank of 4 or above) to that inner page of your website, and try to use the keyword in the anchor text <a href="http://www.yoursite.com">your keyword</a> when you build a backlink.

If you can locate some keywords on your site that have fewer than 50,000 competing pages when you type the keyword using quotation marks into Google, then these pages will be a lot easier to get traffic for. You should target some of those pages on your site and start a campaign where you build at least 10 backlinks per page, possibly using social bookmarking, and commenting on high page rank forums or blogs. These less competitive pages on your site (which have less then 50,000 competing pages showing in google for your keyphrase) will be the first pages to bring you organic traffic. The higher, more competitive ones, are going to take much more time to draw traffic with.

You can also submit some articles to ezinearticles which is a high ranking article directory and put a link to your main domain in the signature file. These articles might end up with good placements in Google and may create some traffic for you as a short-term strategy for traffic building.

Lastly, join forums related to your niche and try to establish yourself as an "expert" there, contributing in a good way to the community, and put a link to your site in your signature file. You can build traffic, sales, and subscribers to your newsletter if you have one this way even when your site is very new.

Best
Jennifer

[kkchoon]

Hi Saidar,

Google Sandbox don't exists, but instead, something call trust rank or trust filter(S) do exists. I capitalized the S because there are a lot of rules...

I can only share my personal experience, may be other warriors can verify and confirm this.

For New Sites:

Your site is less than 6 months old, Google won't TRUST you, they will observe your behavior and what you did to decide if your site is valuable and trustworthy, they do that by:

#1. If you post content too many too fast, especially batch posting to your site, you might trigger the filter. Some say you should not post more than your site already have, meaning if your site only have 10 post indexed, and you post more than that, you are going to ruin your TRUST.

What I would do is 1 post per day until after 1 week, then 2 post a day up to 2 months before adding more posts / day. Normally I would only post 1 articles for 3 months.

#2. Better to have unique content at start. I am not sure how auto blogging able to post RSS content and get rank, but I figure if I use unique keyword targeted content would give me better targeted traffic, so I will have 90 posts of UNIQUE KEYWORD TARGETED content in my site before I add other people's content for my reader.

You can join Syndicate Kahuna, ArticleMarketingAutomation for free Unique content to your site, I use that to add value to my site only.

#3. You need QUALITY BACK LINKs at start, don't submit to low PR and untrusted site for links at start, you are still under probation by Google, and I heard that Google has 1st impression algorithm, you better get your site High PR links in these 3 months!

Try Angela and Paul back links service, look for the WSO in this forum, they provide valuable back links information for a very low monthly price - $5 and $8.

After 3 months, you see your traffic growing strong, then you can hit any keywords with more low quality links, that's when Google trusted you!

#4. You site should be targeting 3 words keyword as the main keyword, and in your other sub-pages, try to target 4 words or more long tail keyword. Google will not rank you for major keyword in 3 ~ 6 months time, unless you have TRUSTRANK. However, all long tail keywords work fine and ranking well in getting traffic!

#5. You should design your site to keep your visitor staying, I found that if your bounce rate is more than 70%, you are not convincing Google...! Try to design your site for the keyword you are targeted, get them interested and opt-in or click-through your site. If you have a 80% bounce rate and keep having incoming links, that's not natural and you will see your site traffic starts to drop, rapidly!

#6. When you site traffic starts to drop, you start messing around and tune your bounce rate, end up changing too many indexed pages and links, that raise a big RED flag to Google you are doing something BAD... What you should do is design everything right from the start, instead of changing the content, ADD MORE, don't change too many things!

#7. After your site gain trust, you can pretty much get spam links and everything to rank for any keywords, just beware if overdoing it will get your site filtered as well!

Conclusion

Do everything right from the start, build the trust first before going too aggressive. Use Web 2.0 site like Squidoo, EzineArticles, Hubpages to host your "REWRITE CONTENT" for fast ranking and traffic, build back links to those web 2.0 site (You can spam using bookmarking and wordpress MU, the best tool is SENUKE), your "REWRITTEN CONTENT" will rank fast and well, you can get instant traffic while waiting for your site to AGE...

Try this strategy and you will get traffic and sale, while waiting for your site to gain trust rank. You can easily scale up this method once you have successfully build a Good site..

To Your Success!
Kok Choon

[dburk]

Hi Saidar,

The so called "Google Sandbox" doesn't really exist, except within the imagination of people who believe in it. It might be more appropriate to refer to it as the "Sandbox Effect", which is result of people feeling like their web pages have been penalized.

The notion of a Google "Sandbox" popped up shortly after Google introduced a SERP ranking factor known internally as QDF (Query Deserves Freshness). This new factor would give a temporary boost in ranking for new pages that may contain recent information that a searcher was looking for. Without this feature you would have difficulty finding recent up-to-date information on Google.

This new feature would allow folks that posted new information find their new pages near the top of the SERP (temporarily). This lead to the mistaken notion that they had earned a top ranking, and when the freshness factor wore off, they often felt that they were penalized. Thus the theory of a "Sandbox" emerged as folks began to let their imaginations run wild.

Sadly, they failed to recognize the temporary "gift" they received, and instead chose to look at it as a penalty.

[cookies]

Wow...great advice here. I'm way behind all of you, but will be traveling down this path in the near future.

Thanks for sharing. Now I understand better why sites I set up in the past either didn't take off (too much content/linking all at once) or petered off despite my best efforts!

[paulgl]

Yeah what everyone else said with my 2 cents.
Your site is not so much sandboxed, as it is buried
because there are too many well-established martial
arts pages that occur before yours. Pick a niche and
run with it.

Your site does come up #1 for the phrase:
"in the Orient, similar expressions like Budo"
with quotes. I copied it down and did a search just to
see if it was indexed. It is.

I tried a few more:
military traditions of the martial arts
Without quotes, your site comes up on page 1, about 5th.

All you need to do is narrow your focus. You probably never
will rank anywhere close for martial arts. But some variation
is probably very doable.

Paul

[Mickm]

Matt Cutts said a few years back that "what web developers may percieve as a sandbox" exists for some industries.. they won't say which industries but think of the sandbox as a series of additional spam filters imposed on a site for a while.

With respect to you dburk, I agree with 99.9% of the advice you give and really enjoy reading your posts but on this issue I don't agree that QDF is the same as the sandbox, but I do understand where you're coming from to reach that conclusion.

As you know QDF can effect any site at anytime (depending on what's happening in the blogsphere, newswires and user searches) but the sandbox theory only really applies to newer sites... that's what I'm basing my conclusion on.

[Matt Hoey]

Originally Posted by dburk

Hi Saidar,

The so called "Google Sandbox" doesn't really exist, except within the imagination of people who believe in it. It might be more appropriate to refer to it as the "Sandbox Effect", which is result of people feeling like their web pages have been penalized.

The notion of a Google "Sandbox" popped up shortly after Google introduced a SERP ranking factor known internally as QDF (Query Deserves Freshness). This new factor would give a temporary boost in ranking for new pages that may contain recent information that a searcher was looking for. Without this feature you would have difficulty finding recent up-to-date information on Google.

This new feature would allow folks that posted new information find their new pages near the top of the SERP (temporarily). This lead to the mistaken notion that they had earned a top ranking, and when the freshness factor wore off, they often felt that they were penalized. Thus the theory of a "Sandbox" emerged as folks began to let their imaginations run wild.

Sadly, they failed to recognize the temporary "gift" they received, and instead chose to look at it as a penalty.

there really is a sandbox, it's called the trustfilter and it stops any *new* website ranking well, until Google understands how trusted the website can be.

QDF is something different and usually only occurs on established domains. I do it a lot for some good keywords, it's part of my job running our company site.

[dburk]

Originally Posted by Mickm

Matt Cutts said a few years back that "what web developers may percieve as a sandbox" exists for some industries.. they won't say which industries but think of the sandbox as a series of additional spam filters imposed on a site for a while.

With respect to you dburk, I agree with 99.9% of the advice you give and really enjoy reading your posts but on this issue I don't agree that QDF is the same as the sandbox, but I do understand where you're coming from to reach that conclusion.

As you know QDF can effect any site at anytime (depending on what's happening in the blogsphere, newswires and user searches) but the sandbox theory only really applies to newer sites... that's what I'm basing my conclusion on.

Yes, QDF can effect any site at anytime, but search engines don't rank sites they rank pages. The QDF factor is only applied to newly indexed pages, so if a site posts lots of new pages, then they may experience the "perceived" sandbox effect for those pages, while their established pages are not effected.

When you have a new site all of your pages are new, so you tend to see the benefit of QDF across your entire site. Again, it's only temporary, so when all those new pages lose the QDF benefit, they all drop in rankings at nearly the same time. A webmaster without this knowledge is often left wondering why their pages have disappeared from the top of the SERP, and so is born the mythical "Sandbox".

You can choose to see this temporary benefit as a good thing, or like some folks, you can choose to cry and whine when the temporary benefit wears off. Asking "why o why has Google forsaken me"? generally leads to a "perceived" existence in the imagined "sandbox".

[brp002]

Hey if you have good articles just post your articles to:

Digg.com
Reddit.com
Mixx.com

Those 3 social networks. Your Pages will def get indexed and if the articles are as good as you say they are people will link to it.

Just from posting on those three networks which takes 3 minutes you can get an easy 10-20 links back.

Try it out man.

Thanks,
Brian P

[brp002]

Another thing put some of your links in your signature. There is some link building for you. 1 link is better than none. Good luck man!

[Mickm]

Originally Posted by dburk

Yes, QDF can effect any site at anytime, but search engines don't rank sites they rank pages. The QDF factor is only applied to newly indexed pages, so if a site posts lots of new pages, then they may experience the "perceived" sandbox effect for those pages, while their established pages are not effected.

When you have a new site all of your pages are new, so you tend to see the benefit of QDF across your entire site. Again, it's only temporary, so when all those new pages lose the QDF benefit, they all drop in rankings at nearly the same time. A webmaster without this knowledge is often left wondering why their pages have disappeared from the top of the SERP, and so is born the mythical "Sandbox".

You can choose to see this temporary benefit as a good thing, or like some folks, you can choose to cry and whine when the temporary benefit wears off. Asking "why o why has Google forsaken me"? generally leads to a "perceived" existence in the imagined "sandbox".

They're valid points about QDF, which is a fairly new admission from Google (2007, I think), while the sandbox, or the percieved effects of it, were admitted in 2004/2005.. granted QDF is probably a factor in sandboxing but I find it hard to believe it's the only factor, considering the types of crawls that Google carries out on each page and the type of data QDF itself uses to rank a page... we both know that the algorithm is looking for trends and what's hot, which can't be applied to every type of search.

Doing a bit of digging around the web, well.. really just heading to one of my most trusted SEO sources to see what they have to say about the issue SEOmoz | Potential Solutions & Updates to the Google Sandbox Theory

I don't know when the article was posted but they have also experienced the sandbox, now if Google are moving away from sandboxing and replacing it with QDF that could be a possibility, but I'm pretty certain that either way sandboxing isn't just in our imagination.

[dburk]

Originally Posted by Mickm

They're valid points about QDF, which is a fairly new admission from Google (2007, I think), while the sandbox, or the percieved effects of it, were admitted in 2004/2005.. granted QDF is probably a factor in sandboxing but I find it hard to believe it's the only factor, considering the types of crawls that Google carries out on each page and the type of data QDF itself uses to rank a page... we both know that the algorithm is looking for trends and what's hot, which can't be applied to every type of search.

Doing a bit of digging around the web, well.. really just heading to one of my most trusted SEO sources to see what they have to say about the issue SEOmoz | Potential Solutions & Updates to the Google Sandbox Theory

I don't know when the article was posted but they have also experienced the sandbox, now if Google are moving away from sandboxing and replacing it with QDF that could be a possibility, but I'm pretty certain that either way sandboxing isn't just in our imagination.

Hi Mickm,

I stand corrected, you are right the term "sandbox" was originally applied to the effects of the introduction of TrustRank into Google's algorithm. The use of the term had nearly died out until the introduction of QDF which has ignited the use of the term in a much bigger way. Trustrank had become a well understood factor for ranking and then this thing called QDF came along and got a thousand times the cry of "sandbox" victims.

It is the combination of the two factors that seem to generate nearly all claims of "sandbox" these days. The QDF factor convinces so many people with new websites that they had earned top rankings only to see it disappear. In actuality they never earned the ranking in the first place.

It was the introduction of TrustRank that created the need for the QDF factor and you are right TrustRank is a integral component of the "Sandbox Effect". I was wrong to discount the that part of the so called sandbox effect, but I still do not consider it a penalty or a place you fall into. It's just an effective way of ranking pages based on trust which is earned over time. As soon as you point that out though, most folks turn around and argue that they were ranked higher and then they dropped, therefore it wasn't TrustRank.

I was simply jumping ahead to final argument, due to my impatience. I'm sorry to have implied you were wrong.

[Matt Hoey]

Originally Posted by dburk

Hi Mickm,

I stand corrected, you are right the term "sandbox" was originally applied to the effects of the introduction of TrustRank into Google's algorithm. The use of the term had nearly died out until the introduction of QDF which has ignited the use of the term in a much bigger way. Trustrank had become a well understood factor for ranking and then this thing called QDF came along and got a thousand times the cry of "sandbox" victims.

It is the combination of the two factors that seem to generate nearly all claims of "sandbox" these days. The QDF factor convinces so many people with new websites that they had earned top rankings only to see it disappear. In actuality they never earned the ranking in the first place.

It was the introduction of TrustRank that created the need for the QDF factor and you are right TrustRank is a integral component of the "Sandbox Effect". I was wrong to discount the that part of the so called sandbox effect, but I still do not consider it a penalty or a place you fall into. It's just an effective way of ranking pages based on trust which is earned over time. As soon as you point that out though, most folks turn around and argue that they were ranked higher and then they dropped, therefore it wasn't TrustRank.

I was simply jumping ahead to final argument, due to my impatience. I'm sorry to have implied you were wrong.

You're wrong because QDF is only applied to trusted domains and pages.

For a start, QDF doesn't come into play unless Google detects a relevant page on a trusted website to have keywords that are up there with Google trends keywords. QDF is something totally different from being in the trustfilter zone, it doesn't even come into play with new websites and from experience the majority of people who ask are they sandboxed have a new website.

So therefore, unless you're creating articles on an established website which are very up to date with the latest news, then there's no QDF coming into play.

Most people who think they've been sandboxed have basically created a spammy website, gained some backlinks and watched as their ranking shot up for a day and then plummeted 100 places for the next month.

All that's happened is Google knows it's a new website and wants to test it against their trustfilter first. There's no QDF involved because QDF only works for an already trusted website. Trustfilter can last up to 6 months and possibly more but by then it's likely the website has already had it's trust tarnished so it well and truly is "sandoxed".

QDF and sandbox are two different things and they never meet each other.

[kkchoon]

Hey Matt,

May be you are right, but I find one of my site getting nice traffic after 30 days from registration, and I keep on building links while my bounce rate is high.

Google rank me to page #1 for many keywords but after reach 45 days, all my keywords starts to drop, and I don't surprise... I think this might be what Mickm refer as QDF.

While you think QDF only happens when a site got TrustRank after 6 months, what my site experiencing is not QDF at all, but it did happen to rank and fall for some reasons.

However, according to is not the case: How to use the Google “Query Deserves Freshness” or QDF model to your advantage
"As you might have guessed QDF is a great way for newer sites to publish content and leapfrog the Google trust filter for queries that Google thinks are fresh. The key is to post about breaking news stories as soon as possible, hope Google indexes your story quickly and watch the traffic come rolling in. Once your site ranks highly it becomes a self reinforcing authority and is referenced by other people researching the topic."

Google will rank well for hot and newsworthy information without looking at the trust rank, however, how they rank, and if they still rely on links to rank is another issues. If Google will disregards trust rank and rank for hot news, we can constantly get traffic by writing newsworthy articles and hits google with spam links... not sure if this work.

Another problem with new site without TrustRank: they not only won't rank for more competitive keywords, they are vulnerable and easy to get kicked! Anyone can just use spam tool to kill any new sites with bad and low quality links!

Anyway, this thread has gone very interesting, and it would be valuable for everyone to share their version of experience!

Thanks Matt,
Kok Choon

[rai007]

What I’m starting to notice, is if you can gain a good trusted authority link on an aged webpage you website will see good results very quickly. I don’t know if this can affect a sandboxed website, my own experience had one of my websites plunged 100 places up out of the sandbox as soon as my PR4 .edu backlink appeared on my backlink checker, but like is ay, I can’t vouch for that being the case for certain. What I personally now believe is the idea of building “lots of backlinks” is not what we should be doing anymore. For some this may be nothing new, but I don’t think it is emphasized enough. I’m sure, in fact I’d take a $100 bet that if you use PR as an indication of a websites trust and you slowly build links from only PR4 websites and articles you could be in googles trusted zone a lot quicker than 90% of our seemingly current methods.

[kkchoon]

I agree with you rai007, however, don't disregard the powerful linking strategy after your site gain trust, you can rank for many targeted keyword within your niche using low PR links as well, that's of course after you gain trust.

Try using low pr links to your article and web 2.0 site, you rank fast and well for the keywords without any penalty, and I don't know if you over do this will get your site "untrusted" or not, but you rank fast for many keywords!

[Matt Hoey]

Originally Posted by kkchoon

think this might be what Mickm refer as QDF.

It's nothing to do with QDF, what would QDF be applied to on your website? The point of QDF is to display the most up to date pages but this only happens when there is an event, a press release or something similar.

Go to Google trends and you will find candidates for QDF.

If you make a website about diet programs or weight loss, QDF won't even come close to being factored into your website, unless there's some upsurge or news to be had and then you'd have to target those specific keywords by adding a new page to an already well trusted domain.

While you think QDF only happens when a site got TrustRank after 6 months, what my site experiencing is not QDF at all, but it did happen to rank and fall for some reasons.

QDF can't physically make your SERPs decrease. It can only find relevant up to date pages and display them. It's most likely another factor which has affected your SERPS.

However, according to is not the case: How to use the Google “Query Deserves Freshness” or QDF model to your advantage
"As you might have guessed QDF is a great way for newer sites to publish content and leapfrog the Google trust filter for queries that Google thinks are fresh. The key is to post about breaking news stories as soon as possible, hope Google indexes your story quickly and watch the traffic come rolling in. Once your site ranks highly it becomes a self reinforcing authority and is referenced by other people researching the topic."

I don't think that's accurate to be honest. I've learnt it works with already trusted domains, highly crawled domains which Google picks up really fast.


Trustfilter and QDF are two very separate entitys, you can't have both at the same time. Trustfilter stops you ranking until you're trusted, QDF looks for pages to rank higher than others. One pulls, the other one pushes.

[kkchoon]

m... until we find the one who came out with QDF, we won't know for sure.

[Saidar]

Wow guys, thanks for all the information!

I think I've done a stupid thing a week ago...

I payed directorymaximizer.com $15 to list my website at 100 pagerank 3 websites... Does google penalize you for links from lots of directories?

[kkchoon]

NOPE! Especially PR3 is a good rank. Jeff Johnson did mention about spreading it to a month for 100 sites submission, but I think as long as PR is high, you are safe!

[Mickm]

Originally Posted by dburk

I was simply jumping ahead to final argument, due to my impatience. I'm sorry to have implied you were wrong.

No harm done mate, of all the SEO experts on this forum, if I was unable to continue working with a client you'd be my first choice recommendation.

[bgmacaw]

Originally Posted by Saidar

I payed directorymaximizer.com $15 to list my website at 100 pagerank 3 websites... Does google penalize you for links from lots of directories?

No. If this was so it would be easy to take down a competing site for a $15 investment.

The links may be discounted or not counted at all but it shouldn't affect your site directly.

[kkchoon]

The more trust you have, the more links will be accepted (Only apply to High PR), if you site is new and you build it too fast, I **think** some of the links will be discounted...

[dburk]

Hi Matt,

While you make some valid points I cannot agree with some primary assertions. For one thing, you refer to TrustRank (Official term) as a trust filter, I think this is where your reasoning goes awry.

I realize many folks have referred to this factor as a filter, but if you spend much time writing algorithms you will realize that a filter is like an on or off switch. While TrustRank appears to work as a function that generates a variable score. This important distinction is readily apparent by a tremendous amount of supporting evidence.

TrustRank appears to act as a multiplying factor in the overall ranking scores, not as a filter. Every new page starts with the same baseline and then TrustRank multiplies that score. So yes, a trusted site that has relevant links pointing to a new page from relevant and trusted content will score higher.

Since many new pages from new sites earn top positions above those well trusted pages on those trusted sites, the theory that QDF doesn't apply to new web sites defies the evidence to contrary.

Likewise your theory that TrustRank is a trust filter, isn't supported by the facts. Many new sites with new pages are able to maintain some ranking even after the QDF factor has expired. If the so called "trust filter" existed they would not be ranked at all.

While many folks do drop into the supplemental index this is due to having no inbound links, or having 1000 or more web pages that outrank them. The SERP only return the top 1000 pages, so that would be a filter, but it's always been there and it simply filters based on ranking score and always cuts results at the top 1000.

If you have empirical evidence that supports your theories, please present them for discussion. I'm always open to learning something new, but there must be some credible evidence before I will buy into it.

[kkchoon]

Hi Don Burk,

I think I agree that QDF is happening for new sites, but the real meaning of QDF still remain undefined here, until someone show the original post of QDF - the definition.

However, what you said about QDF, I do have similar experience.

From my experience, your theory of multiply factor do apply, it just feels like what you describe, but Matt theory of Trust Filter also very true.

There are some filter around when you don't have certain trust rank. I have some new sites, with tons of back links, quality links but they just won't rank until certain time delay.

I think, there are many filters and rules, and Google Algorithm just too complicated to be 100% sure what is the actual filter, and when someone figures it out, Google will change it to filter only quality content.

Anyway, any theory is welcome, and based on different experience, we might have a different conclusion. You or Matt theory is matching my experience while remain inconclusive...

[dburk]

Originally Posted by kkchoon

Hi Don Burk,

I think I agree that QDF is happening for new sites, but the real meaning of QDF still remain undefined here, until someone show the original post of QDF - the definition.

However, what you said about QDF, I do have similar experience.

Hi kkchoon,

Here's the original article in the NY Times where the Google engineer publicly discusses QDF, why it was developed and how it works:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/03/bu...l?pagewanted=3

Originally Posted by kkchoon

From my experience, your theory of multiply factor do apply, it just feels like what you describe, but Matt theory of Trust Filter also very true.

There are some filter around when you don't have certain trust rank. I have some new sites, with tons of back links, quality links but they just won't rank until certain time delay.

I think, there are many filters and rules, and Google Algorithm just too complicated to be 100% sure what is the actual filter, and when someone figures it out, Google will change it to filter only quality content.

In every case I have examined, the use of a filter was disproved or not verifiable, which supports a ranking factor, rather than a filter. In each case where a page was not in the SERP, it could be explained by simply not ranking high enough or having zero inbound links. so evidence suggest that there would be no need for a filter.

The Google engineers are smart enough to not build a filter that has no effective use. A well designed algorithm is always elegant in its simplicity and efficiency. To add a filter where none is necessary seems to defy logic. Again all evidence I have seen supports a factor not a filter. If anyone has contrary evidence, then please present it for examination.

[Saidar]

I think I may have some information from my own experience that may help you guys in this discussion...

When google first indexed my site, my site appeared in the top 10 for keywords that receives a LOT of traffic. Other keywords like "Martial Arts" that receive millions of searches a month, is reported to rank my site below nr. 500.

I found this information from Google webmaster tools - Top search queries.

BUT now I don't even rank in the top 1000 for any of those keywords. Very very strange. Even more strange that google analytics doesn't report a single visitor from such a keyword, but my webmaster tools history shows those keywords under my "top search queries" page

Google is really blowing my mind. Maybe they all had a little party and some drunk dude messed up my stats or someting

[kkchoon]

Originally Posted by dburk

Hi kkchoon,

In every case I have examined, the use of a filter was disproved or not verifiable, which supports a ranking factor, rather than a filter. In each case where a page was not in the SERP, it could be explained by simply not ranking high enough or having zero inbound links. so evidence suggest that there would be no need for a filter.

The Google engineers are smart enough to not build a filter that has no effective use. A well designed algorithm is always elegant in its simplicity and efficiency. To add a filter where none is necessary seems to defy logic. Again all evidence I have seen supports a factor not a filter. If anyone has contrary evidence, then please present it for examination.

I think there are no way to prove which theory is accurate, but both filter and the trust rank multiplying effect seems to explain my experiences. I think only Google know that, or may be you have confirmed source from some where?

[kkchoon]

Originally Posted by Saidar

I think I may have some information from my own experience that may help you guys in this discussion...

When google first indexed my site, my site appeared in the top 10 for keywords that receives a LOT of traffic. Other keywords like "Martial Arts" that receive millions of searches a month, is reported to rank my site below nr. 500.

I found this information from Google webmaster tools - Top search queries.

BUT now I don't even rank in the top 1000 for any of those keywords. Very very strange. Even more strange that google analytics doesn't report a single visitor from such a keyword, but my webmaster tools history shows those keywords under my "top search queries" page

Google is really blowing my mind. Maybe they all had a little party and some drunk dude messed up my stats or someting

Don't worry, I think your site is new? Just keep doing quality back links and adding more good content, do it naturally and within 3 months you should regain your position and traffic, at this time, just focus on building quality content!

[Saidar]

Originally Posted by kkchoon

Don't worry, I think your site is new? Just keep doing quality back links and adding more good content, do it naturally and within 3 months you should regain your position and traffic, at this time, just focus on building quality content!

Yes about 10 weeks. Will do!

[kkchoon]

I would recommend you focus on 1 type of martial art, and sell product on that, unless you are doing adsence site...

[dburk]

Originally Posted by kkchoon

I think there are no way to prove which theory is accurate, but both filter and the trust rank multiplying effect seems to explain my experiences. I think only Google know that, or may be you have confirmed source from some where?

Hi kkchoon,

We can't see gravity, but we can clearly see and accurately measure the effects of gravity on the physical world. Likewise, we can't see the algorithm, but we can see and measure the effects.

You can use Scientific Method to discover the nature of all kinds of mysterious phenomenon. While we can not see the exact algorithm, we can certainly test hypothesis and learn a great deal. The lack of evidence of a filter and supporting evidence of a ranking filter can be deduced from the data.

[dburk]

Originally Posted by Saidar

I think I may have some information from my own experience that may help you guys in this discussion...

When google first indexed my site, my site appeared in the top 10 for keywords that receives a LOT of traffic. Other keywords like "Martial Arts" that receive millions of searches a month, is reported to rank my site below nr. 500.

I found this information from Google webmaster tools - Top search queries.

BUT now I don't even rank in the top 1000 for any of those keywords. Very very strange. Even more strange that google analytics doesn't report a single visitor from such a keyword, but my webmaster tools history shows those keywords under my "top search queries" page

Google is really blowing my mind. Maybe they all had a little party and some drunk dude messed up my stats or someting

Hi Saidar,

The QDF factor can account for your initial high ranking and subsequent drop from the rankings. The fact that you are in an extremely competitive niche accounts for why you are not yet in the top 1000.

A while back Google introduced personalized search which includes factors like geo-targeting results and previous search history, which accounts for the small amount of traffic that you continue to see.

[Matt Hoey]

Originally Posted by dburk

Hi Matt,

While you make some valid points I cannot agree with some primary assertions. For one thing, you refer to TrustRank (Official term) as a trust filter, I think this is where your reasoning goes awry.

I realize many folks have referred to this factor as a filter, but if you spend much time writing algorithms you will realize that a filter is like an on or off switch. While TrustRank appears to work as a function that generates a variable score. This important distinction is readily apparent by a tremendous amount of supporting evidence.

Trustfilter was referred to by matt cuts himself when describing sandbox.

[dburk]

Originally Posted by Matt Hoey

Trustfilter was referred to by matt cuts himself when describing sandbox.

Really? Can you cite your source, or was this a private conversation between you and Matt Cutts?

[Matt Hoey]

Originally Posted by dburk

Really? Can you cite your source, or was this a private conversation between you and Matt Cutts?

lol, it is on his website but i don't want to look through every post he's made.

He basically said "we have another term for it"

[Matt Hoey]

Also, just to add, for me personally i believe if you're "sandboxed" you've done something bad which has prompted Google to Sandbox you. I have a sandboxed website, i got lots and lots of dodgy links and all of my rankings dropped hundreds of places and it's never moved since. Officially sandboxed.

The company I work for (Ph.Creative) experienced something similar with a clients website recently, after resubmitting for reconsideration and making sure it adheres to guidelines, the website in question has appeared in the search results again.

This didn't happen over days either, my sandboxed site has been firmly sandboxed for months now.

Now, we at Ph.Creative have pumped out hundreds of website and microsites, our clients pay a lot of money for SEO alone so we spend a lot of time making sure what we do works.

What we know is that there IS a "Trustfilter", this is confirmed by Matt Cutts. With any new website, you must earn your trust before Google will allow you to appear highly in their search results which is common sense really. Without a trustfilter there would be no relevant search results.

Yesterday one of ym newer personal websites has just come out of the trustfilter and jumped 120 positions for my chosen keywords and simi9lar positions for others.

You can be in the trust zone for a long time depending on your websites "actions".

You don't even have to have it confirmed to know that Google has a place for spammy, irrelevant websites so that they don't devalue search results and a place for new websites to determine if they are trustworthy and place them in the relevant position.

That's just common sense.