Google sandbox a factor of internet marketer "spammy" methods more than anything else?

3 replies
  • SEO
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I have been thinking about a lot of SEO topics lately. Thinking that may SEO concepts are really not what they might seem in reality.

While I am no expert and still consider myself a newbie one such concept seems to be the infamous sandbox.

NONE of my now 8 sites have experienced the sandbox! NONE.

And I have been watching rankings very closely.

However, unlike other internet marketers I have not focused on ezine article marketing for backlinks, on page SEO for tile and meta tags, and other such techniques. At least not initially.

I have focused on only three things.

1. Writing outstanding content myself through careful research with natural LSI wording built in as I write.

2. Including a fair number of outgoing one way links to high authority sites (i.e. wikipedia, webmd, government, etc..) and using anchor text to line up with the subject of my site...taking some liberty to describe the site authority page being linked to in line with my own page content (as long as such a relationship does indeed exist).

3. Exact phrase I am targetting in the domain.

No meta tags, title tag, or other on-page SEO (I'm still building in those capabilities into my custom CMS system that I have built for myself).

I have achieved rather surprising ranking and quickly so just using the three steps above and virtually nothing else.

If I site makes it into the top 100 I then focus more energy on getting it to rank better.

Eventually I will take out some, though not all, of the authority outgoing links and replace them with Google Adsense links or links to related articles at other of my sites.

I also don't turn on Adsense until a site page has achieved top ten ranking.

But I've noticed that NONE of them have experienced the sandbox and most of them have been up for several weeks to over a month.

Which makes me theorize that the sandbox is Google catching up with internet marketing gimmicks and beating sites down until they of course rise up again as more internet marketing gimmicks are applied until Google catches up with them again or at least until the site improves enough to warrant a more stable ranking.

That's just a theory mind you but as good as the every site gets into the sandbox theory I think .

Like most SEO theories or "common" knowledge I wonder if the whole concept of every site gets into the sandbox applies mainly to internet marketers focused on using gimmicks to bypass the need to create great content.

Great content like great keyword research takes time. Most of us seem more focused on trying to avoid good ol fashioned work by finding tricks and ways to get high ranking easily or the proverbial key to riches approach.

Thoughts anyone?

Carlos

PS. My sites might all get sandboxed this week though of course I hope not LOL.

PSS. I am aware of the terrible content is better for Adsense approach and while I can see some merit to such an approach I prefer building better content quality, though not too much (I don't use sub-headings for example just a bunch of text), into my own Adsense sites.
#factor #google #internet #marketer #methods #sandbox #spammy
  • Profile picture of the author bgmacaw
    Some observations...

    LSI isn't used by Google for ranking purposes, if anything at all. They use their own blend of algorithms that use phrase weighting in conjunction with previous search data and link anchors. It's still a form of hairy matrix math and statistics but isn't LSI.

    Anchoring out to authority sites is actually very helpful. While it technically dilutes your "link juice" it also seems to increase the trust and associative authority of your site.

    The 'sandbox' isn't a single algorithm, on/off, switch but the cumulative effect of several algorithms acting in harmony to improve search results (or to give Google's advertising an edge, to be a little cynical).

    A lot of what people think is 'sandboxing' is just a few of the algorithms that give new content a temporary boost in action. Real sandboxing is generally the result of aggressive gray or black strategies, not normal article submissions, social bookmarking and the like. The problem with the normal non-aggressive strategies is that they don't build strong, relevant, incoming links, only weak ones, so the site drops like a rock once the new content bonus is removed.

    For Adsense sites, I go with good content but a very plain and dull visual experience. If someone reads the content, they'll probably learn something about the topic at hand, but most people will get bored and click an ad (10-30%) or click out (the rest).
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    • Profile picture of the author carlos123
      Originally Posted by bgmacaw View Post

      LSI isn't used by Google for ranking purposes, if anything at all.
      Not sure if I would say that bgmacaw. I just saw an excellent video the other day that indicates quite strongly that Google most definitely takes into account some form of LSI as a ranking factor.

      See...EzSEO Newsletter # 271

      I am not affiliated with Dr. Kennedy or his newsletter at all. He just has some really good stuff.

      Carlos
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  • Profile picture of the author ramprof
    I don't think I have ever had a site "sandboxed" - at least not in the past few years. I've even had really bad sites indexed and ranking well within a few days or weeks. My university students (30-40 per year) have experienced the same thing.

    Based on my experience I believe the sandbox is largely a thing of the past. Google is increasingly focused on real-time search - things that are happening right now. So sandboxing sites does not fit into that overall strategy.
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