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Help! My Royal Wedding site got sandboxed!

by Ellen C Braun
12 replies
  • SEO
    • |
I created a site about Prince William and Kate Middleton's upcoming marriage a few months ago. For most of March, I got about 150+ daily SEO visitors from Google alone.

Then, I had my first #$&^ SANDBOX experience, and for the past few days I've been getting 3-6 seo visitors from Google.

I've done articles, press release, guest posts for backlinking.

Is there any tried and true method of getting out of the sandbox quickly? Their wedding is Apr 29, so if I can't save this site soon, I'm going to stop focusing on it!
#royal #sandboxed #site #wedding
  • Profile picture of the author Heavenstorm
    does your site show up with the site:yourdomain.com
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    • Profile picture of the author Ellen C Braun
      Originally Posted by Heavenstorm View Post

      does your site show up with the site:yourdomain.com
      Yes, it does. And it is getting 3-6 visitors from G daily. But a far cry from the 150+ daily it was getting until a few days ago!
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      • Profile picture of the author Ellen C Braun
        My real question is:

        Do you have any idea about how long it normally takes to emerge from the SANDBOX?

        If it takes a few months, I will drop this niche. If it takes a few weeks, I will continue to work it!

        Thanks in advance
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        • Profile picture of the author paulgl
          There is no sandbox. Your site settled in to where it should be after
          the newness wore off. You need to keep things fresh. Some niches
          require more frequent updates and freshness. Keep quality link
          building. Your topic is ripe for rise and falls.

          There is no sandbox and I wish that myth would just die. Google
          does not purposely keep your site down by piling sand on top.
          It puts sites above yours because, at this moment, they value
          other sites more. How they value sites is dynamic. If there was a
          sandbox, then what does that say about the site listed just below
          yours? That they (and all the rest below you) are in a double
          secret sandbox? Of course not. If there are 500,000 results, and
          you come up #150, then that would mean that 499,850 sites are in the
          sandbox.

          Paul
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          • Profile picture of the author dburk
            Hi Ellen,

            I agree with paul, there is no sandbox.

            What you are experiencing is the temporary boost from QDF (Query Deserves Freshness) wearing off.

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          • Profile picture of the author Diane S
            Originally Posted by paulgl View Post

            There is no sandbox and I wish that myth would just die.
            On the other hand, Paul, that myth plus the myth about nofollow links being worthless keep others from continuing to use methods that the rest of know really work, based on testing.

            Ellen, there really is no way to know for sure how long it would take to bring a site to a certain position in SERPS. That is why site promotion should be allocated at least 80% of the effort given to any site... just have to kill it with links. Google does everything it can to be sure the 'science' behind the algorithm, if there is any, remains off limits.

            Sorry I don't have any specific advice to give, because there is none that can be given in good faith. I am sorry this happened to your site at the wrong time - after the wedding would have been expected...
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  • Profile picture of the author App Developers
    Hard to say. I have heard talk about being sandboxed for months and some only a few days. I would give it a little more time and see if things improve. Keep working on it.
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  • Profile picture of the author Mariefurni
    As Paulgl says, i think you are not sandboxed but Check your positioning to see your ranking serp google, if you lost a lot of position then this may be only temporary time for google to calculate your new position wait few days.

    I hope your site comme back before the wedding.
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  • Profile picture of the author Ellen C Braun
    Thanks, all!

    In conclusion, there really is no way to know.

    What do you think Google would rather see now:

    More unique content on the site OR more backlinks pointing to my money pages on the site?
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    • Profile picture of the author ElectronPlumber
      Originally Posted by Ellen C Braun View Post

      Thanks, all!

      In conclusion, there really is no way to know.

      What do you think Google would rather see now:

      More unique content on the site OR more backlinks pointing to my money pages on the site?
      Ellen, I don't think it's an either/or here. You need both, and you need it fast.

      For links, you don't have enough time for Google to find low quality links. You need some good backlinks.

      For freshness, It's a fast moving topic and Google knows that. Try to post new content multiple times a day at least to keep your rankings. The content needs to be unique, but doesn't need to be hard to create. Write a 150 blurb about ANOTHER related story posted somewhere then link to it. It's what Gawker, Engadget, Lifehacker and all those sites do. There is barely any unique news on those sites, it's just a hand written rehash of stuff they found on other sites with the other site cited as the source. Do the same.
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  • Profile picture of the author Zeb
    I've had a few sites that dropped out of the search results. Some went out for good and some came back even stronger. It's really hard to tell why. Anyways, what i did for those sites to come back is to keep on backlinking the pages with quality links (from good pr blog networks), not spammy type links (blog comments etc).
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  • Profile picture of the author Ellen C Braun
    Thank you, everyone!

    I am just pressed for time as Prince William and Kate are getting married on 4/29!

    I am also working on viral traffic for the site.

    You can see my cool video asking the media to protect Kate from being hounded by paparazzi as Princess Diana was:

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