Hi - I run a well established music website at MilestoneMediaworks. The .com URL is the same as our company name (I can't put in a live link) if you want to check it out. We are music producers and "music producer" is our key money word. Before Oct Jag update we were as high as #6 on Google for this, and consistently on the first page. We climbed there over a period of about 4 months and mostly due to cross linking with about 70% music sites, and maybe 30% other quality sites of interest. But we mostly have music links. We have about 200 active links - so a fair #. So like many recently we dropped off the map for Music producer and are now maybe 300 or so for this - and other keywords that we ranked high on are also blasted. Meanwhile for Yahoo and MSN we are #1 and #2 for these and now get most of our SE traffic. Coincidently we did a fairly big content update recently where our site content improved with more meat. We have also added many more linking sites in the last several months. So the long winded question is - can you end up back in the sandbox if your site linkage improves too much, or your content changes allot. Also how long might it last. Thanks for taking time to read my post! Gene
It would last as long as the sandbox usually lasts - 6 months+ Yes it is possible. The sandbox isn't an automatic penalty (regardless to the age of the site) - It occurs when a filter is tripped. ie: Too many links too quickly... Although having read your post, I wouldn't say that 200 links would do it.
One addtional piece of information - during the time where we disappeared we went from PR4 to PR5 - so go figure. I would rather be a PR4 at this rate Gene
The exact same thing happened for me with two sites. I had not made any changes at all to these sites. Just steady link building (not excessive all at one time). Do you think these will come back in time or will whatever has been trigger remain?
Link building is the key but more specific the type of links you get and the anchor text that is used. IMO, you can get 200 link in a month but the anchor text is an important key. If you really want it to look natural go after 100's of anchors.