I optimized a mini-site at vintagepicnicbasket.com and within 4 days, it got indexed by Google and positioned at #2 for the term "Vintage Picnic Basket". Then 5 days later, it disappeared from the Google SERPs completely. Is this a "sandbox" thing? Why would it appear, then disappear? Maybe the page was too miniature in size for Google? Trying to figure out the reason. Any help and input is appreciated. Thanks.
This is not uncommon. Google seems to go through a filtering process on a regular basis. At times a site appears and then next time it does not, depending on what filter Google is applying to their index. I don't know this for fact, but it seems like a lot of the sites with ton's of affiliate links show up for a while, but are quickly downgraded to lower rankings. This is an observation, but a few of my sites have experience this effect as well. So I try to front load quality content and then back load the affiliate links. So I keep my home pages and content pages free of these types of links. I am interested in seeing other peoples opinion on this topic. Maybe there is a better way to deploy out bound affiliate links. I am not a big believer in the so called "Sand Box" effect since I have brand new sites ranking very well....and consistently
I have seen this happen with most of my sites. For example I have one site that has ranked #2 or #3 for a keyword phrase for quite some time. Then suddenly it completely disappeared from the results for two straight days. I was a little concerned but then on the third day it appeared back in the same position and has been there ever since. I have seen a similar situation with other websites as well. depotgang - I am not a believer of the sandbox theory either. Too many times I have built a new website and seen it indexed by Google within just a few days.
It does happen. You can lose ranking if your backlinks falter. If your backlinks are devalued it could affect your PR and subsequent ranking. You may also have a case of dup content and then your pages go to supplementary results. Regularly, Google makes updates to its ranking algo and you may find yourself changing positions. Another factor could be your competition. If they are gaining more points in ranking factors,you can go down.
as long as you're optimizing your site well, do continuous link buildings and didn't do any black tricks, it will surely come back where you've last seen it.. always monitor your backlinks,, you may fall because of the loss of quality backlinks to your site... Regards!
If your site appearead and disappeared? maybe it's just google dance...just continue building links, links and links.....
Regarding backlinks: I've always just typed into Google) allintext:url Is there a better way to find out how many backlinks you have?
You can use backlinkwatch.com to check your site's backlinks (google doesnt list all your links that quick). In this site, you can see all your backlinks (from sites that have been crawled by SE bots) as well as your anchor texts used.
Just an update. My site never returned. Oh well. My content is 100% original, so this is not the reason.