Is there something i can do to check if my site is sandboxed? does it only happen to new sites? the total number of pages indexed which can be checked using site: operator shows that it's fluctuating: sometimes 100 pages indexed, and sometimes 5k pages indexed. help appreciated. thanks
I think what people call "sandboxed" has changed over the pass 5 years. It use to be for just about all new website... at least they couldn't rank until the sandbox period was over. Nowadays you can rank quicker but if you trip a filter it can put you in a sandbox for a while no matter how old your website is.
Did your site rank for a while? It is not unusual for it to dissapear for a while and come back to the same or place in the SERPS.
there is no sandbox, dont worry about it. new sites see a temporary hike on serp then after a while the site have compete with others as usual; thats all its about.
Google seems to be changing how many pages they index now, with the new Google caffeine datacenters. You're probably just pulling up different datacenters.. The caffeine data centers are extremely slow at indexing new sites, unless it's a stupid twitter or facebook post or some other real time search, which is very annoying in my opinion to merge that friend chat crap with a search engine. It's like mixing oil with water.. Some things shouldn't necessarily blend, but focus on what each tool is designed for. I don't use search engines to chat with friends, I use chat lines and social media for that.. Alternatively, most don't use social media to search for "blue widgets"..
never heard of this sandbox for a long time.. and i doubt that it really exist.. one thing for sure if your site is not indexing by google is if its penalized or ban..
The way your site pages indexed and the sandbox has no correlation between them. Sandbox could happens to most of new sites that targeted some competitive keywords. What does this mean? 1. If the new site is targeting the very low to non competitive keyword. The chance to got sandboxed is almost none. This is because there are no site with "authoritative status" in that niche / keyword. For example - if one site targeted for keyword like "sado oda oda bingo woo" then that site should be ranked first page after the content published and got indexed. Of course, that ranking won't go down since there is none of competitors targeting that same keyword and your page is the only one which has that keyword appeared. 2. If the new site is targeting on medium level to high compeitive keyword, or being judged by Google algo that your site has some related to those type of keyword. Then your site has almost 1000% to got sandboxed. Your (new) site will be ranked in some keywords, sometime highly competitive, for a temporaily before go down to 100++. The time your site got some ranked is called "Honeymoon Period" and your site need more links and content thereafter to climb up. Google always needed "Trust" before give you a stable ranking for those keywords. The time, content, link populariy, site history are a part of their Trust. That's why aged domain with consistency in promotion could win.