I'm Finally out....

Went into the 'box' on Google the beginning of April, and finally came out yesterday. Six keyword sets for the site which have been sitting at 180-200 off and on (they'd disappear some days to N/A) went from around #180 and out of no where shot up to inside the top 10 yesterday, with more that appear ready to move up.

What a relief. Can't believe it took so long, but just thought I'd post this to give people another a general idea of how long it may take if you're dealing with it. It took me about 7 months.

Ian

 

congrats dude, I'm jealous. how old is your site?

 

I do not understand?

 

It apparently was started in April according to that first post.

That sounds about right to me.

I have a few sites in the sandbox...!

 

I finished it the end of March, linked to it and got it crawled within a day, deep crawled within two weeks, and it was great for a day and then dropped off like a rock. It's been non-existent despite the fact it's ranked great in Yahoo and MSN. My jaw dropped yesterday when I was making my daily keyword query and checking my Yahoo and MSN rankings, and there it was, I noticed six terms shot up into the top 10 on Google, including two #1's.

So as I said, about 7 months. Just like many here said it would take, and man, what a relief.

Ian

 

Thanks Shannon, I appreciate it

Ian

 

grats.

I hope I can get out soon. 9 months now and counting.

 

That's great.
Congrats and Good luck...

 

I've seen a site in the 'box for 1 year and 7 months...

 

congrats, my site keeps jumping in and out the box in diff datacenters so i guess ill be (hopefully) joining ya soon

 

Can I ask why the site went to sandbox at the first place? Was it because of new site or some panelty?

Calboy

 

Well now after the update it appears I'm in the same boat. Three days before the update I came out (as I said after 7 months of waiting), and now bits and pieces of the site are dropping (according to the keyword tracker).

The strange thing is when checking the tracker there are still some pages that are listed as dropping back at #179, but when I check it manually they're currently showing up back at #3, #4 in Google. This Update has been strange so far. According to the posts in the other forum though hopefully things work themselves out soon. Cross your fingers

Ian

 

No, no penalty, just apparently a new site filter (otherwise known as the "sandbox"). According to most people I've talked to about this they say it's to prevent people from making a site just for quick rankings and quick $$. The tough part is in my case it was a brand new e-commerce site, and the same people also mentioned that they may do it to force new business sites like mine to have to use Adwords to generate business while waiting for the natural SERPS to finally settle.

Ian

 

Congrats.

I got a bunch of sites sitting in the box as well, and I can't wait for them to bloom and get out of the G-desert!

DP

 

Think I'm out too. Went from the back of beyond to #75 out of 5,120,000 results. It's not top ten but there is clearly light at the end of the tunnel.

 

Ian, were you ranking well in Yahoo and MSN all this time?

 

Before you got out of the box where there any initial indications that you were about to get out? Did some of your lesser key words start to rank better first? Desperate to get out of the box..adwords is very expensive.

 

There are many other reasons, besides the sandbox, why a site doesn't rank well. I have never heard of the sandbox lasting that long and would suspect it is something else. How do you compare to the top ten ranked sites with inanchor links? I'm not saying this is the case with your situation, but a LOT of people blame the sandbox when it is really something else - like an over-optimization penalty, not enough backlinks, or a site that isn't properly seo'd. The most common problem for a site not ranking well is that it doesn't come close with inanchor links compared to the top ranking sites (and from relevant sites). Affiliate based sites can also have a problem, but if you have unique content, I would at least check the competition.

I have over 40 sites and the sandbox has never lasted longer than 4 months for any of them - which isn't to say that they are subject to wild flucuations with changes in the algorithm. I have a site that I have owned for over 7 years and jagger killed keywords I have ranked #1 for for years- and the cause obviously isn't the sandbox.

 

Sorry mjewel you are totally wrong. The sandbox can and often does last more than 4 months.