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How to get out of Google's sandbox

by Sushiman1111
8 replies
  • SEO
    • |
Hey guys,

I have a website that I'm pretty sure got sandboxed by Google. Over the summer it was making a few hundred bucks a month for me and ranking for KWs in my niche. Then, suddenly, zero rankings for anything other than the URL itself.

This was an Adsense/Affiliate review site, so obviously the P&P updates hurt it. I've removed all the adsense stuff (installed new WP theme), and have started to add content that is not specifically reviews to pad it out a little. I will say that the reviews I have posted are good ones. I bought the products and know the niche well, so I do have something worthwhile to say. But still, these are affiliate links, so...

Anyway, I'm looking for advice on how to get back into Big G's good graces. Any ideas? WP plugins that will cloak the aff links from G? Strategies for shifting the content around...?

Thanks!
#google #sandbox
  • Profile picture of the author Andyhenry
    Originally Posted by Alex Nordach View Post

    Anyway, I'm looking for advice on how to get back into Big G's good graces.

    WP plugins that will cloak the aff links from G?
    Did you really just say both those things in the same breath?

    Tricking Google with cloaking is NOT the way to get back in their good books.

    You probably need to look at your links - if you have any paid links or links from unrelated sites then they'll keep you sandboxed harder than anything else.
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    nothing to see here.

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    • Profile picture of the author Ettienne
      Originally Posted by Andyhenry View Post

      Did you really just say both those things in the same breath?

      Tricking Google with cloaking is NOT the way to get back in their good books.

      You probably need to look at your links - if you have any paid links or links from unrelated sites then they'll keep you sandboxed harder than anything else.
      Andy is right, sandbox usually happens due to low quality, irrelevant links (mass spam). Backlinks should be natural, or at least, SEEM very natural. Varying anchor text plays a major role in avoiding the dreaded sandbox.
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  • Profile picture of the author Sushiman1111
    Andy - LOL. Well, when you put it like that...

    Okay, fair point. I don't know whether the backlinks are bad or not. I did some article marketing, which probably wasn't great, and a few Fiverr gigs posting videos and so on on various sites for BLs. So, I don't know if sites like Vimeo and Slideshare count as "unrelated".

    Super, the content is completely unique. Wrote it all myself, so I know for sure. As for Keywords, basically they're just targeted to the product names.
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    Got a health/fitness niche list? Become an affiliate for something new and different here.
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  • Profile picture of the author gabibeowulf
    You need couple of things:

    > great content, updated daily
    > more backlinks that raise the overall site authority
    > clean up your site, so that when a human reviewer comes he won't say anything bad about it.

    Next,

    > submit your site for reinclusion on webmaster tools
    > post on the official google forums - prepare to be criticized a lot, but eventually if you follow google's guidelines you will get a google employee to take a second look at your site

    - Gabriel
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    • Profile picture of the author nathand
      I got my reinclusion request back today.. no manual penalty.. even tho I was wiped out 1000/day to 20/day (visitors, that is lol), it was all Google Penguin. Google sent me a notification in webmaster tools - I wrote an article on google reinclusion requests since I thought it was pretty neat...
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  • Profile picture of the author GodMode52
    Get a new domain and start over again with a different business model. Trying to get back penalized sites is a big waste of resources and time, even more if you were making only few bucks/m with it.

    But of course find out what went wrong with your site first.
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