After nine months, my main site is finally out of the sandbox. I was targetting extremely competitive keywords and now I'm within striking distance of top 10 rankings in Google. For those who don't believe in the sandbox effect, let me know what you know that I don't. It's real, and I'm glad to finally be out.
I was just commenting on this on another thread on how lucky a person was. I have had a site sandboxed in a VERY competitive niche also. It came out about an hour ago. Maybe Google is giving us something nice for thanksgiving. At the rate I have seen new threads pop up today though, I'd say the rolled out an algo tweak. I'm not complaining! Finally, my Google SEPRS match my Live and YAHOO! SERPS!!!!!
Very interesting! Same thing happened with me tonight and I stopped by to see if there was some sort of update. In fact, I'm redesiging a site now that is a very competitive niche with tough keywords to rank for. I check daily with the keyword tracker and like every other day since it's been online, no ranking in top 200 for google as of yesterday. I was working with SEO Studio tonight to do some competitive analysis and saw that SEO Studio was showing I ranked number 9 for my primary keyword. I thought it was a mistake, but after checking google, see it's true. All these months of working and working and working (about 1.5 weeks shy of nine months) the site and finally get some love! Not keeping my hopes up, but it's sure nice to see page one results for such a competitive niche.
I am also seeing a lift on one site nothing amazing but still, its better than being over the 100 mark. I must do a complete check and see if anything is worth shouting about.
It is a finance related keyword. Extremely competitive. According to Overture Tools, the keyword gets about 469,000 searches per month, and people bid about $5.65 per click.
Worth the wait then I've noticed a site aged 4 months jump #3-5 for many keyphrases, not so competitive though, still no where for the main word though
are you guys still out of the sandbox now? i thought i was yesterday, but then I disappeared again...see this thread for more info: http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?t=185307
sandbox is used by google to prevent spam sites . if you want to get out of sandbox quickly 1. update your site daily 2. find more backlinks for your site
you can get out of the sandbox instantly as well. sigh, get so tired of repeating myself. "more backlinks" will not get you out. in many cases it can hurt new sites. updating your site daily has nothing to do with it. "waiting" will not automatically get you out. most sites that have been made after the sandbox was created are still being affected by it, albeit to different levels.
Ok but how to lessen the effects of the sandbox? I have a site targeted for a competitive search term that was in the sandbox for a year (the longest a site of mine have been in the sandbox), now it just pop into the top 100 and the ranking is increasing. Now I figure it would be alright to finally speed up and gain more links quickly, or would that just trigger another filter?
Personally I'd say why don't you invest 50% of your time in link building (from relevent sites) and the remaining 50% in measures that will increase your long term links (ie: link baiting). That way you're getting both instant and long-run results.
Just to let people know, it appears that I am actually out of the sandbox. I disappeared for a day, and then came back in again, and have held rank in the top 30 for a few days. What got me out of the sandbox? I can unequivocally say that it was a successful link bait. It didn't get me a huge amount of links, but instead some very high power links from authoratative, trusted sites, such as one from Wired Magazine! I think link bait is a good way out of the sandbox, because it produces natural results. It is just very hard to find your link bait and make it a success - mine came along as a lucky coincidence (a local event with buzz which I saw I could cover from an international perspective, and get a report on the internet before anyone else), but when I saw it, I knew I had to act fast and take the opportunity. And the link bait paid off - here I am, out of the goddamn sandbox (it appears!)