Is My Site Sandboxed?

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86
I have a site that is almost 4 months old. It had been ranking for a number of keywords centered around product names. However, today I checked and I now find these pages are not ranked on the 1st page for these keywords but are on the very last page of results for the keyword in the SERPs. Other pages of the site are showing up. However, these are not pages that I had done any link building to.

My link building strategy has been to write articles and blog commenting. I only started the blog commenting about a month ago. This has consisted of me making anywhere from 5 to 13 links a day on do follow blogs. My question is has my site been sandboxed or is this just an initial fluctuation?
#search engine optimization #sandboxed #site
  • Hi JDSalinger,

    There is no sandbox, it is just a myth.

    We get at least one of these threads a week and most of the time it is just the temporary boost effect of QDF wearing off and your new web pages going to it's currently earned position.
    • [2] replies
    • Thank you for responding. I know you know your stuff. However, I recognize that sites can jump around in position but this is a pretty dramatic jump where my page is moving from position #5 to position #429. I do not know what QDF is, but it seems like that is more than just google dance. Believe me, I would be happy to realize it is a myth. But why would I see multiple pages basically fall out of the top 400 overnight?
      • [1] reply
    • You keep clamoring this over, and over, and over.

      Create a new site and give me the URL.

      I guarantee you I will sandbox it for months.
      • [2] replies
  • Type your domain into Google search engine, tell me your results.
    Search your domain like this:
    mydomainname.com

    Tell me what rank you are.
    • [1] reply
    • I am in the first position and it is showing 243 results.
      • [1] reply
  • you should put some content of your website into the google to search, to see whether the page of your site ranks No. 1, if not, It may be in sandbox.
  • Google will Sandbox sites aka De-index. If your site is doing bad stuff to the point of abuse like Phishing it will happen. Check by googling your name.com if it pulls up you are not sandboxed.

    Google Dance- New site with links tend to bounce around in rankings.

    Serp Filter penalties. If you have an established site and run abnormal amount of backlinks or bad neighborhood links via Anchor text backlinks for certain target keywords. Google will take your rankings and penalize you for indeterminate amount of time.

    Google Panda/Farmer update was implemented end of Feb 2011 and March 2011 which hammered sites with duplicate content and bad neighborhood links.

    Another thing is sites like Ezine Articles and directories were hit hard with this update. There are some steps you can do to fix this. I wrote a blog post with more detail about Google Panda here
    • [1] reply
  • Banned
    [DELETED]
    • [1] reply
    • My site is not older than 6 months but I can find it in the first position by doing a google search with mydomainname.com.
  • There are several possibilities right now judging by the given information. This happens all the time and is not uncommon at all, though so I wouldn't worry too much.

    1. The theory that your rankings are now 'settling in' to where they belong
    2. Your website triggered a filter for overly aggressive link velocity, non-varied anchor text or not building enough separate page links.

    In my opinion it's more likely the second option. The phenomenon in #1 referred to in this thread is generally something that only happens with newer websites than yours and rarely happens after you've already climbed up.

    If you went from position 300 to position 3 overnight then a temporary grace period is more likely, but since you climbed up slowly I don't think that's the case. Make sure you're using more than one keyword and page when you're link building, anchor text filters are easy to trigger.

    The best thing to do from here IMO is to keep building links and SEOing your website like nothing happened. The only thing I would change are your backlinking behaviors if you're not appearing natural enough.
    • [1] reply
    • Hi Phasm,

      Thank you for responding. Right now, I am building backlinks to several different product pages. I write some articles that I post on my blog and then when these are indexed, I post the same article to only one article directory. Then, with each additional post, I then post to another article directory.

      The other thing I do is post blog comments to sites that have page rank and are do follow. Most of these blogs tend to be ones that automatically accept comments. I tend to use the same anchor text for these comments but I have only been building links this way for less than a month. I also am not doing more than 5 a day for any one keyword and only doing about 8-13 overall links each day.

      What would you suggest I adjust based on this information? Is this natural enough? Do you see there being any issues with Panda/Farmer update?
      • [2] replies
  • Your site is just too new to make assumptions about. You're definitely not sandboxed. Just keep building links and you'll climb back up.
  • *Starts bitching at the guy next to him about how long its taking for the movie to start
    • [1] reply
    • Right there with ya. I'd love to see his reasoning for his beliefs.
      • [1] reply
  • And I thought sandboxes only existed in childrens' playgrounds? :confused:

    • [1] reply
    • I guess you stand to learn a bit as well
      • [1] reply
  • Well this was awfully disappointing.
    • [2] replies
    • Well Hi guy's. This is an interessting post... Joining the show to learn..
    • Hi Mike,

      Please don't give up yet!

      I have registered a new domain and created a hosting account. I haven't had time to setup the Wordpress script yet. I'm working on it now so please give me about an hour to finish up.
  • [DELETED]


  • So here is just 1 example of the so called sandbox. When my site started it got indexed with a few articles and was ranking in the lower 20's. I then sent 10,000 profile links and 10,000 blog comments at the site in 1 day. As you can see it then plummeted for about 2 weeks to the 300's and then BAMM! Back strong! Now ive had a steady rise but the site just wasn't getting to the top 5 like I wanted. Now a few days ago I blasted the hell out of the page again, I went up to #7, then to #10 now im at #295. Like I stated in my previous post I will guarantee that I'll be back on the 1st page soon. This is proof rather then speculation and talk.
    • [1] reply
    • Im sending a lot more than 10k comments and profiles, lol.
  • When our site is new and we start the link building campaign once the keyword position goes down and its quiet natural don't worry you will be back to the previous position.
  • you are not sandboxed, do some improvements on your seo
  • I would say initial fluctuation - see how you are in a couple of weeks
    Kenny
    • [1] reply
    • So I guess this test isn't gonna happen, huh?
      • [1] reply
  • It could be a temporary fluctuation 5-13 links a day is hardly going to raise suspicion that you are building links too quickly, which is one of the factors that can get your site sandboxed
    • [1] reply
    • Hi dagaul101,

      Google has no problem with building links quickly. They love finding meritorious links no matter how fast they are created and they hate finding spam no matter how slow you drip feed it.

      The more aggressive you link building the more exposure your website gets and the quicker your spam is discovered and devalued.

      Creating spam slower isn't necessarily going to delay the discovery of that spam, since it is often found on the same page along with spam created by other highly aggressive spam campaigns. If you want to hide your spam for as long as possible, you need to find places that no other spammers have discovered.

      Or, you could build meritorious links at the fastest pace you can manage and not worry about "looking natural".
  • I guess that its not penalized you need to work on content n keep working on your back links soon you can get back your place on google
  • Oh man... I actually read through this entire thread, and was anticipating the experiment. I really wanted to see if Google Sandbox was a myth or not.
    • [1] reply
    • Hahaha me too!

      Lets see if DBurk actually steps up...
      • [1] reply
  • I have a new site in April and blast XRumer after a month. After checking the PR in June it rose up to PR 2. Sometimes, big G is generous.
  • you are not sandboxed, do some improvements on your seo
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    Is My Site Sandboxed?

    I have a site that is almost 4 months old. It had been ranking for a number of keywords centered around product names. However, today I checked and I now find these pages are not ranked on the 1st page for these keywords but are on the very last page of results for the keyword in the SERPs. Other pages of the site are showing up. However, these are not pages that I had done any link building to. My link building strategy has been to write articles and blog commenting. I only started the blog commenting about a month ago. This has consisted of me making anywhere from 5 to 13 links a day on do follow blogs. My question is has my site been sandboxed or is this just an initial fluctuation?