Coming out of the Sandbox

[Arnica]

There is a wealth of ‘sandbox’ theories across various fora all having some merit. What I would be interested in is a straw poll of the length of time it takes for new sites to come out of the sandbox and the relationship of this period to the popularity of the keyword phrase and the initial number of backlinks with the keyword phrase as the anchor text.

If any one would care to post info on their own sites then I would be happy to collate the data and hopefully draw some conclusions. It would also be useful to know if your sites are still in the sandbox as well. To start the ball rolling the info from my own site is:

Still in the sandbox: Yes

Time in the sandbox: 10 weeks

No. of Backlinks: 72

Keyword Popularity: 6,150,000 (No. of results returned by Google for the Keyword Phrase)


I appreciate there are many other factors that will be involved but I feel it would be useful to be able to say to clients it is likely to take around x weeks to start showing prominently in the regular SERPs.

Mick

[Smyrl]

I do not buy into the Sandbox Theory. It has always taken a new site some time before it can obtain a stable place in the SERPs. I would not expect much stability for 3-4 months.

The pattern I have always observed a new site will get picked up and you are excited. The next thing you know it is no place to be found. As Google starts reshuffling results it appears they go back to older data and show it during the reshuffle. Unfortunately a new site in not listed in the old data so new site disappears for a while. As soon as Google reorganizes you typically reappear etc. I've seen this happen over and over.

P.S. Be sure to list with DMOZ. As soon as DMOZ listing kicks in your site usually improves in the SERPs.

Shannon

[dazzlindonna]

I've never bought into the sandbox theory either, but whether it exists or not, I always tell people to expect good rankings in 3-6 months (if ever). I'm pretty good at what I do, but every now and then, I can't get a particular kw phrase to rank well no matter what. Generally, though, 3-6 months is realistic. If they want immediate results, then adwords is the answer.

[Smyrl]

Dazzlin,

Your time frame is probably more accurate. I would never tell a client I would have them listed in 3 months. Would try to but with the fickle nature of updates who knows.

Shannon

[Arnica]

I do not buy into the Sandbox Theory. It has always taken a new site some time before it can obtain a stable place in the SERPs. I would not expect much stability for 3-4 months.

The pattern I have always observed a new site will get picked up and you are excited. The next thing you know it is no place to be found. As Google starts reshuffling results it appears they go back to older data and show it during the reshuffle. Unfortunately a new site in not listed in the old data so new site disappears for a while. As soon as Google reorganizes you typically reappear etc. I've seen this happen over and over.
Hi Shannon

I agree in general on the SERPs stabilising but there certainly is some 'dampening' effect on backlinks to new domains with popular keyword phrases as the anchor text. My own site has not appeared in the SERPs for the phrase at all yet but has very good 'allinanchor' placement. Others have reported that their sites have been listed (and stable) around two months after Google first indexed the site. Others still, with presumably less popular keyword phrases, report being listed after a week. It is this correlation that I'm interested in.



P.S. Be sure to list with DMOZ. As soon as DMOZ listing kicks in your site usually improves in the SERPs.
I would agree again but my experience is it often takes many months, if not years, to get listed in DMOZ - long after Google's SERPs have stabilised.

Mick

[billion]

I'm not sure if the Sandbox exists but here is what I have.

Still in Sandbox: No

Time in Sandbox: 12 weeks

No. of Backlinks: 19,900

Keyword Popularity: Didn't go for one phrase/keyword. Most of them are between 100,000 and 1,000,000

[digitalpoint]

Maybe you got too many links too quickly? Are you still adding links, or holding steady?

[Arnica]

...
No. of Backlinks: 19,900

Keyword Popularity: Didn't go for one phrase/keyword. Most of them are between 100,000 and 1,000,000Thanks billion.

That's a lot of backlinks. Can I ask does the anchor text of the backlinks include your keyword phrase / phrases? [Added - i.e. How many links with keyword anchor text as this seems to be the trigger for the sandbox effect?]

Mick

[billion]

Maybe, I have no idea really. I'm still adding.

Maybe you got too many links too quickly? Are you still adding links, or holding steady?

[billion]

Most of them have keywords in the anchor text. I'm not sure about the % but maybe 70-80% of the links.

Thanks billion.

That's a lot of backlinks. Can I ask does the anchor text of the backlinks include your keyword phrase / phrases? [Added - i.e. How many links with keyword anchor text as this seems to be the trigger for the sandbox effect?]

Mick

[schlottke]

Shawn, do you actually think getting links too quickly will effect you in the serps? What about new sites that pop up and have overnight success, like if Bill Gates were to start a personal blog- he'd recieve thounsands of links immediately from people arond the world.

[digitalpoint]

I do think too many links too quickly can actually have a negative effect on your ranking. I have a site that was on the first page of results for all my keywords. I decided to throw about 2,000 links at 4 sub-pages. The sub-pages also ranked on the first page of results before hand. A few days after I added all the links, the main page stayed the same, and all the sub-pages dropped to between 30-50.

I can't say for certain, but it sure seems that way to me. I'm going to leave the links as they are and see if it slowly crawls back to at least where they were before.

I'm guessing it also has to do with how many links the page already has. Since my sub-pages as no external links. And I've thrown lots of links a the main page without any drop, but the main page has a ton of existing links. So if that's the case, they probably take into account how many links are already established and based on that as well.

[compar]

I do think too many links too quickly can actually have a negative effect on your ranking. I have a site that was on the first page of results for all my keywords. I decided to throw about 2,000 links at 4 sub-pages. The sub-pages also ranked on the first page of results before hand. A few days after I added all the links, the main page stayed the same, and all the sub-pages dropped to between 30-50.
That's an interesting theory. When we threw the 3,500 forum sig links at the McDar page it dropped something like from #17 to #27. Your theory could explain this. Then the question is how long to crawl back, because I still believe as I assume you do that more links are better than less.

[compar]

Keyword Popularity: 6,150,000 (No. of results returned by Google for the Keyword Phrase)

I have seen a lot of people quote the number of pages returned as a measure of a keyword's popularity or competitiveness. I've never thought that this was a valid measure.

I think a keyword phrase's popularity or competitiveness is reflected by the number of people searching on it. Not the number of pages returned.

Google doesn't return only pages that match the keyword phrase exactly. It also returns any page with any of the words in the content or possibly in anchor text. So a keyword phrase that contains a very common word will generate a SERP for millions of pages. This is no assurance or measure of how many people are searching on this phrase or of how many SEOs are optimizing for the phrase. It is only a measure of the commonality of one or more words in the phrase.

If you don't believe me do a search for "www" or even for "the". They both return billions of pages. Does that mean they are popular search terms or keyword phrases. Of course not.

[Arnica]

I have seen a lot of people quote the number of pages returned as a measure of a keyword's popularity or competitiveness. I've never thought that this was a valid measure.

I completely agree Bob - it's just the easiest (if not the only?) way of getting some feel for popularity / competitiveness. I think for purpose of making some observations on the length of time Google sandboxes backlinks it's probably the best we can hope for. As ever I'm open to suggestions for better methods.

Mick

[Arnica]

I'm guessing it also has to do with how many links the page already has. Since my sub-pages as no external links. And I've thrown lots of links a the main page without any drop, but the main page has a ton of existing links. So if that's the case, they probably take into account how many links are already established and based on that as well.
I have also found that an 'old' site or page, with established links, is not impacted in the same way as new sites / pages. It would be interesting to ascertain the threshold ratio between exisitng and new links before ranking is negatively impacted.

Mick

[Smyrl]

I have had four sites submitted and added to DMOZ since the beginning of March.

There is only one site I have that has not been added to DMOZ. Site went up in 2001 and is still not there. I resubmitted about March 1, this year. Hope springs eternal.

Best of luck,
Shannon

[compar]

I completely agree Bob - it's just the easiest (if not the only?) way of getting some feel for popularity / competitiveness. I think for purpose of making some observations on the length of time Google sandboxes backlinks it's probably the best we can hope for. As ever I'm open to suggestions for better methods.

Mick
Just go to Shawns Keyword suggestion tool and search on the phrase. That will give you the number of times per day it is searched on as reported by Wordtracker and Overture.

[DarrenC]

Okay;

Time in sandbox: 0 weeks
Number of links: 4
KW' sites total; 145,000

I've never been in a "sandbox" the site has been live for 4 months, and even though it's not ranking in the top 10 of results, I'm still listed, and so are the subpages and homepage.

I didnt' submit the site through Google, just put up a backlink on my main site (PR5) and Google picked it up and it's been there since..

Oh and how the hell do you get 19,000 backlinks :o

Darren :)

[Colmad]

Dear Dazzlindonna,

I saw in your post that you recommend Adwords. I have Dubai and a Cuba holiday sites that I use Adsense on. The Dubai site, (5 months old), has a good Alexa ranking but only about 35 unique vistors a day which I am desperate to improve. The Cuba site is really only a few weeks old. I use Adsense on both. Could you explain briefly how Adwords would help in rankings. I thought if I was buying keywords from Google that they would be loathe to let me reach the top of the searches as this would appear to wipe each other out, if you know what I mean. I use Adwords for another site, www.sharm-el-sheikh-holidays.co.uk which does bring good numbers of targetted traffic which we can convert into sales.

Colin

[Will.Spencer]

I do not buy into the Sandbox Theory.

I do buy into the sandbox theory.

Moreover, I also currently believe that the sandbox algorithm was altered radically in early May.

The older algorithm was much nicer to new sites.

The new algorithm is more harder on new sites.

Proof? None yet, and with Google, seldom if ever. :(

[Arnica]

Thanks Darren

Oh and how the hell do you get 19,000 backlinks :o

Darren :)
Lot's of hard work and it helps to either own a high page count forum or two or be able to buy or barter a link thereon! ;)

Mick

[DarrenC]

Colin, I know where you are coming I was in the same position as you two years ago when I launched my business Worldwide Holiday Homes. It's taken me all this time to really make a dent in the search engines for my main website, your first aim is to take as much information in as possible from the forums, treat some of the information as speculation because you don't want to be redesigning your website because of what one person says.

The main thing about Google is back links, you seriously need to get them links up, the more links you have the better positions you will get in Google. Also, keyword related content, use keywords within your text, ie Dubai Holidays etc. I am not sure how competitve the Dubai travel industry is at the moment, so I am actually performing my own tests to see how easy it is to get listed for Dubai vacations/ hotels related KW's.

I'd recommend spending a least five hours a week on gaining more links, especially to websites that are related to holidays, and Dubai.

I'm sure you already do but use DP's keyword tracker, and see how it goes. Keep in touch because I don't mind sharing the results of the testing I am doing for the Dubai website.

Darren :)

[leeds1]

Hmmm, I'm not sure.

I had a 80 page site and here's what I did

> Added a forum (now 900 pages indexed - very fast I might add)
> Added probably c 100 links (all to the home page)

My competitors now have less pages and less links

I crawled slowly up by about 10 pages - but now can't budge

I think my recent links are not counting

(site > 3 years old)

[Dominic]

When your forum gets pagerank the links back to your site from there will give you more value.

I wouldn't be shy in adding a couple more links home from your forum footer.

I would consider getting a few directly to the forum. Something that comes to mind (don't ask me I don't know if it is) but is your forum search engine friendly?

Gee - I did a quick search on google for business plans and it seems like a pretty tough term to compete on.

[leeds1]

yep - tough term, but I was moving nicely up the rankings up until a couple of weeks ago as I was adding in links - now I am at a standstill, and SERPS are very stable.

I have quite a few links back from my forum so I am just going to hunt down links

[leeds1]

PS - all of the forum has been indexed :D

[SEOGuru]

Though a Sandbox exists, most people do not realize that it really is not new. It also is not applied system wide. Google has a "HotList" of terms that it considers highly competitive (meaning highly searched and with ranking scores that are fairly close). As you can imagine, these are also the most valuable to Google. There has been a debate as to how many terms are in their HotList but most of us believe it is no more than 50,000 and probably closer to 20,000.

The problem is that most people confuse the time it takes for normal indexing and re-ranking with the added time associated with the Sandbox.

Because a new website has no history, Google bases much of its initial ranking on backlinks and page optimization. The PR of the page(s) linking to you IS somewhat important for the mere fact that a page with a higher PR is seen as more of an authority. However, in the initial ranking, the system focuses on a few main criteria.

Is the site that is linking to you of the same theme or topic? Is it a site that is already ranked in that specific keyword? Is the link coming from the root domain of the linking site? If not how many levels deep is it? Is the site on a different IP address (so it isn't one of your own sites on the same server)? This is why initially, a couple of good links from the homepage of other sites in your industry that are already ranked in the keyword you are looking for is far better than having 1000 links on a bunch of other no-name sites that are not even ranked and in many cases not even about your topic.

Now, if your keyword IS in their HotList, there are other considerations. Meaning, they have added criteria they look for and added time constraints before your site has "proved" that it deserves to be in the rankings.

Remember, the guys at Google are arrogant a$$holes. Smart ones, but a$$holes nonetheless. They are on the moral crusade to provide the most relevant results on the planet and they consider it a PRIVILEGE to be listed in their search engine. Whether you are in their listings or blacklisted completely is at their sole discretion. They deem what is and is not relevant. (We'll see how long that lasts when they have 10 million shareholders to answer to and there is a class action lawsuit for business interference.)

So they make up the "rules" then don't tell you what the rules are. And if you violate the rules, they don't tell you which rules you broke. You're just gone. haha

OK, how does this relate to the Sandbox?

Well, everyone knows that Google has been in an eternal battle with the SEO experts of the world. To Google, in theory, there is no "White Hat" and "Black Hat". They consider all optimization search engine spamming because of the fact that you are altering the way you develop and deliver content. Their entire search ranking philosophy is based on their being a democratic Internet where all websites are independent of one another and all content is written unbiased and without influence.

With that said, they know that they can't stop people from optimizing their websites so they decided to focus on the malicious optimization, like optimizing a porn site to come up 1st when someone types in "music". Some of the techniques these people were using were unethical. So developed the distinction between "White Hat" and "Black Hat".

But you must think to yourself... what is the most important thing to a search engine company who makes all of its money based on how relevant their results are? Well, being that 90% of all searches done in the world are virtually the same 20,000 keywords/phrases they needed to protect those results with an iron gate. Thus emerged their HotList.

They created the Sandbox to protect that list. Those are the most valuable terms from a corporate image standpoint and from a revenue standpoint. So before they make any major changes to those terms they make you jump through hoops (only you don't know you are).

The big question is... What are the hoops?
One of them is time. Think of it this way. They put your site in jail for a certain amount of time and have variables that can reduce your "sentence".

One such variable some of us experts refer to as the "who you know" factor.

You see, they have a list of "MAJOR" sites that they deem credible in each of these industries (it isn't always the sites on the first page). If you can get links from some of these websites, you can bypass their HotList criteria (though you still must abide by their normal initial ranking criteria).

There are some well known SEO companies (I wont name any names) that really know very little about true SEO but instead have relationships with very important sites in various industries. Heck, you don't need to know very much if a site like the L.A.Times links to you. haha

Sorry, back to the Sandbox. As I said before, this system isn't new. It just wasn’t called Sandbox before and it wasn't as strict. But they have always had additional criteria for their HotList. They once relied more heavily on DMOZ listings because the boneheads at Google believed the directory was unbiased and therefore the sites that were accepted should be "worth" more. But if you know anything about DMOZ as I'm sure most of you do, you know that it is one of the most hypocritical, corrupt organizations on the Internet. Though our studies show that it is still a factor, it really doesn't hold much weight anymore.

At the end of the day, if you are persistent and use smart SEO techniques, it will only be a matter of time before you see results. The fact is that unless you have built a system that can bypass or reduce their grading structure (wink), you should be counting on every SEO project being about 4-6 months anyway depending on your keyword, the quality of your links, the number of internally indexed pages, your competition, etc.

Hope this explains a little.

[Catfish]

Though a Sandbox exists, most people do not realize that it really is not new. It also is not applied system wide. Google has a "HotList" of terms that it considers highly competitive (meaning highly searched and with ranking scores that are fairly close). As you can imagine, these are also the most valuable to Google. There has been a debate as to how many terms are in their HotList but most of us believe it is no more than 50,000 and probably closer to 20,000.

The problem is that most people confuse the time it takes for normal indexing and re-ranking with the added time associated with the Sandbox.

Because a new website has no history, Google bases much of its initial ranking on backlinks and page optimization. The PR of the page(s) linking to you IS somewhat important for the mere fact that a page with a higher PR is seen as more of an authority. However, in the initial ranking, the system focuses on a few main criteria.

Is the site that is linking to you of the same theme or topic? Is it a site that is already ranked in that specific keyword? Is the link coming from the root domain of the linking site? If not how many levels deep is it? Is the site on a different IP address (so it isn't one of your own sites on the same server)? This is why initially, a couple of good links from the homepage of other sites in your industry that are already ranked in the keyword you are looking for is far better than having 1000 links on a bunch of other no-name sites that are not even ranked and in many cases not even about your topic.

Now, if your keyword IS in their HotList, there are other considerations. Meaning, they have added criteria they look for and added time constraints before your site has "proved" that it deserves to be in the rankings.

Remember, the guys at Google are arrogant a$$holes. Smart ones, but a$$holes nonetheless. They are on the moral crusade to provide the most relevant results on the planet and they consider it a PRIVILEGE to be listed in their search engine. Whether you are in their listings or blacklisted completely is at their sole discretion. They deem what is and is not relevant. (We'll see how long that lasts when they have 10 million shareholders to answer to and there is a class action lawsuit for business interference.)

So they make up the "rules" then don't tell you what the rules are. And if you violate the rules, they don't tell you which rules you broke. You're just gone. haha

OK, how does this relate to the Sandbox?

Well, everyone knows that Google has been in an eternal battle with the SEO experts of the world. To Google, in theory, there is no "White Hat" and "Black Hat". They consider all optimization search engine spamming because of the fact that you are altering the way you develop and deliver content. Their entire search ranking philosophy is based on their being a democratic Internet where all websites are independent of one another and all content is written unbiased and without influence.

With that said, they know that they can't stop people from optimizing their websites so they decided to focus on the malicious optimization, like optimizing a porn site to come up 1st when someone types in "music". Some of the techniques these people were using were unethical. So developed the distinction between "White Hat" and "Black Hat".

But you must think to yourself... what is the most important thing to a search engine company who makes all of its money based on how relevant their results are? Well, being that 90% of all searches done in the world are virtually the same 20,000 keywords/phrases they needed to protect those results with an iron gate. Thus emerged their HotList.

They created the Sandbox to protect that list. Those are the most valuable terms from a corporate image standpoint and from a revenue standpoint. So before they make any major changes to those terms they make you jump through hoops (only you don't know you are).

The big question is... What are the hoops?
One of them is time. Think of it this way. They put your site in jail for a certain amount of time and have variables that can reduce your "sentence".

One such variable some of us experts refer to as the "who you know" factor.

You see, they have a list of "MAJOR" sites that they deem credible in each of these industries (it isn't always the sites on the first page). If you can get links from some of these websites, you can bypass their HotList criteria (though you still must abide by their normal initial ranking criteria).

There are some well known SEO companies (I wont name any names) that really know very little about true SEO but instead have relationships with very important sites in various industries. Heck, you don't need to know very much if a site like the L.A.Times links to you. haha

Sorry, back to the Sandbox. As I said before, this system isn't new. It just wasn’t called Sandbox before and it wasn't as strict. But they have always had additional criteria for their HotList. They once relied more heavily on DMOZ listings because the boneheads at Google believed the directory was unbiased and therefore the sites that were accepted should be "worth" more. But if you know anything about DMOZ as I'm sure most of you do, you know that it is one of the most hypocritical, corrupt organizations on the Internet. Though our studies show that it is still a factor, it really doesn't hold much weight anymore.

At the end of the day, if you are persistent and use smart SEO techniques, it will only be a matter of time before you see results. The fact is that unless you have built a system that can bypass or reduce their grading structure (wink), you should be counting on every SEO project being about 4-6 months anyway depending on your keyword, the quality of your links, the number of internally indexed pages, your competition, etc.

Hope this explains a little.

That was brilliant. That fits exactly my findings. I do SEO for over 50 travel sites as well as 20 other non travel related sites. About 16 of my sites are in the Sandbox in my opinion, all of them started after May 2005. All the sites are in the top 5 for allinanchor:"cityname hotels" and all have at least PR4 or greater on the homepage (most are 5). There is NO reason that these sites do not come up in the top 1000 results, especially since I have similarly constructed and optimized sites that were built before May 2005 which all enjoy top 10 listings for the same kind of competitve keyword phrases. MOst of these keywords get more than 15K searches a month at Overture and I know they are VERY competitive terms. The only thing is some of these sites are over 6 months old (7-8) and I am growing impatient..lol. I will try to buy some advertising perhaps from an authority site that is topic sensitive and see if that will help me break out.

Anyway, great post. Also, its my opinion that being in the sandbox affects you for all words in the sandbox. Is that your experience or do you find it goes on a keyword by keyword basis?

[thecarchoice]

I totally agree

[vinug]

got this domain out of sandbox in 3 months : jobscochin.com

what i did ? Build more backlinks and content