Has Anyone Ever Had An Article Put In The Sandbox For Building Too Many Backlinks?

[StevenSaliba]

I have had 2 articles from ezinearticles.com removed from the Google search results. They were each on page 2, now they are gone. I built a lot of backlinks from high PR sites (15). Has this ever happened to you before?

[dburk]

Hi StevenSaliba,

There is no such place as a Google "Sandbox" (unless you are referring to Google Gadgets' sandbox). There is something that people refer to as the "Sandbox Effect" which ranks new web pages and backlinks lower until they have earned trust by having stood the test of time.

The concept that trust is earned over time, is an integral part of Google's ranking algorithm.

The perception of being placed in an imaginary "sandbox" is most frequently perceived by folks who experience the temporary benefit of the QDF factor that boosts the rankings of new pages. When this temporary boost dissipates, folks are left wondering why their ranking has dropped or disappeared. Thus the imaginary "sandbox" effect.

Your page has not been singled out, except for the temporary boost from the QDF factor. After this boost expires your page drops to it's natural ranking.

Now it's time to get busy promoting your new page and earn that higher ranking.

[altesino]

I don't think you ever get an article "sandboxed". The sandbox occurs with sites. However google often places new pages very high in the results for a couple days but its usually short lived. It settles down lower and you must start promoting it via backlinking.

I've consistently backlinked the heck out of sites and pages and never seen the sandbox. However I do everything very white hat. IE- Manual commenting, etc.

[mysteryboy01]

Ezine articles is an authority site I don't think building too many backlinks can harm any of it's pages. I personally am not a very big fan of the sandbox theory and other myths such as backlinks building too fast can harm or backlinks from linkfarms can harm your site. If that would be true I would do this to my competitors site and G is not stupid to leave this loophole in it's algo.

[Brawnydt]

Mysteryboy, I would recommend doing a little more research.

A) Google can and does selectively deindex pages or articles from authoritative sites like EZA if you spam them with too many suspicious links. Yes it is very possible.

B) I am a firm believer and have had plenty of experience both in the sandbox (or lack of Google trust, or whatever you want to call it) and staying out of it. Yes there is an initial fresh content boost, but after that your page will start to settle in the rankings. If you links look suspicious or unnatural (and you can be sure Google knows exactly what natural links look like on EVERY different kind of website, social, viral, informational and otherwise) then you stand a strong chance of getting sandboxed tell you build some trust. Some niches get sandboxed automatically no matter what.

Try to keep your links natural looking, get links from places a site in your niche would normally get links, and take your time to stay out of the sandbox. A good site is like fine wine, you can't rush the aging process.

Sandboxing is not deindexing, but rather being pushed way down in the rankings for all but your very longtail keywords.

EZA articles tend to start high in the rankings thanks to some fresh content, then they usually drop off. You can give them some links, the more authoritative the better. You can also submit your EZA authors feed to RSS aggregators which will give each and every article instant backlinks. Overdoing it though with hundreds or thousands of links in the first few days/weeks/months (depending on the article or niche) will raise flags.

One of the problems with forums is the massive amount of people saying "I think this..." when they should be saying "I don't know." Especially when it comes to SEO in which there are NO true experts outside of Google.

[Mr_Julian_S]

Ezinearticles is best article directory in my opinion. Even I have gained a lot of backlinks from the directory, but as far as search engine ranking of the articles is concerned, the search rankings of the articles is very short. Even I had articles from ezine placed at top ranks of search results but that was only for say 2-3 days for a maximum.

You cannot compare this to sandbox effect.

[Jenie0109]

haven't encountered that an article entry was sandboxed...just now

[bgmacaw]

Originally Posted by Mr_Julian_S

Ezinearticles is best article directory in my opinion. Even I have gained a lot of backlinks from the directory, but as far as search engine ranking of the articles is concerned, the search rankings of the articles is very short. Even I had articles from ezine placed at top ranks of search results but that was only for say 2-3 days for a maximum.

You cannot compare this to sandbox effect.

This is true for even very minor article directories such as the one I have. Articles when I approve them will get indexed and usually do well for their keyword for a day or so but drop like a rock afterwards. Original, dupe or a hybrid, it doesn't matter, they drop off quickly.

Occasionally some will come back up and get traffic for long tail terms. For example, I have a few articles that will get 20-30 search hits a day but most articles aren't visited again after the initial 'query deserves freshness' push.

[StevenSaliba]

Originally Posted by Brawnydt

Mysteryboy, I would recommend doing a little more research.

A) Google can and does selectively deindex pages or articles from authoritative sites like EZA if you spam them with too many suspicious links. Yes it is very possible.

B) I am a firm believer and have had plenty of experience both in the sandbox (or lack of Google trust, or whatever you want to call it) and staying out of it. Yes there is an initial fresh content boost, but after that your page will start to settle in the rankings. If you links look suspicious or unnatural (and you can be sure Google knows exactly what natural links look like on EVERY different kind of website, social, viral, informational and otherwise) then you stand a strong chance of getting sandboxed tell you build some trust. Some niches get sandboxed automatically no matter what.

Try to keep your links natural looking, get links from places a site in your niche would normally get links, and take your time to stay out of the sandbox. A good site is like fine wine, you can't rush the aging process.

Sandboxing is not deindexing, but rather being pushed way down in the rankings for all but your very longtail keywords.

EZA articles tend to start high in the rankings thanks to some fresh content, then they usually drop off. You can give them some links, the more authoritative the better. You can also submit your EZA authors feed to RSS aggregators which will give each and every article instant backlinks. Overdoing it though with hundreds or thousands of links in the first few days/weeks/months (depending on the article or niche) will raise flags.

One of the problems with forums is the massive amount of people saying "I think this..." when they should be saying "I don't know." Especially when it comes to SEO in which there are NO true experts outside of Google.

You are absolutely right. There are too many people on this forum giving inaccurate advice with the "I think so mentality" If you don't know something you should never give any advice about it. -Steven