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Sandboxed

by JAMES2503
3 replies
  • SEO
    • |
Hi, so I had a domain lying around with some practically useless content on it. I decided to use this domain as a money site, to make a bit extra from it. Targeting low competition keywords without many backlinks. So I completely changed everything on the site, design, theme, overall content, topic, everything.

For the first couple of days after I was indexed I was ranking well and getting traffic. Then, all of a sudden I just got sandboxed, not ranked for anything in the top 500.

Is it because I completely changed my site? Does it take a while for Google to re-consider the drastic changes?

Please give your suggestions on how I can fix this ASAP.
Thanks!
#google #google sandbox #ranking #sandbox #sandboxed
  • Profile picture of the author RyanSEOGears
    It's typical for this sort of thing to happen when you make a large change to a site, especially if you change everything about the site, especially the subject of the site.

    I doubt you've been sandboxed, Google just decided that your site has changed so drastically that they have placed you into a "time out" of sorts so that their algorithm can review your site a bit more thoroughly and prove to itself that it is ranking your site for the "correct" terms. Do a quick search on Google for your domain name and if you appear than you have not been sandboxed. Normally within a few weeks to a month you'll see yourself start to move back upwards in the rankings, just keep moving forward with your current strategies.

    This penalty or "time out" was implemented due to an old practice of people getting a site ranked #1 for something like puppies, and then suddenly changing the site to one giant viagra ad and I'm doubtful we'll ever see it go away. A bit of time and you'll be fine.
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    • Profile picture of the author Yohance j
      I had something happen very similar to one of my sites! Came back around after a month or so finally.
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      • Profile picture of the author JAMES2503
        That was my plan anyway, well actually there's not really much else I can do. Just going to wait it out and see if rankings improve, I know my method for ranking low-comp keywords works because I have other new sites doing it.

        You were right about me not being sanboxed by the way, I've been fully indexed, just lost my rankings because of the dramatic subject change.
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