Escape the Google Sandbox - by The Leader

I wish I had a dollar for everytime someone has asked how to escape the Google Sandbox only to get the following usual answers:

Build more quality back links - why would that work as I have plenty already?

Wait and be patient - like who's patient and I have heard people being indefinitely in the sandbox!

Contact Google - like who can wait that long for them to answer?

The Sandbox is a Myth and doesn't exist - just because you havent experienced it doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

Add more pages to your site with original content - I want my hopepage in serps not additional page.

Get more traffic - I'd have more traffic if I can get out of the sandbox.


So after reading thread after thread on the best SEO forums we are still none the wiser as half the posters tell us we must be dreaming and the other half provide little help.


How do you know you are in the sandbox?

Do a search on site:www.mysite.com and check to see the page you are talking about has been indexed by google. If it has then copy some text from the page and do a seach on it and if your page isn't in the search results then you are in the sandbox! For accuracy you should copy the end of one sentence and start of another and wrap in inverted commas for your search so you site should come up. If not you are definitely in the Sandbox.

So How do I get out of the sandbox

Its important to try and recollect anything you might have done that could have caused this effect. I go through a list of things to check on you webpage to eliminate the possibilities.

1) Have you any sneaky hidden text on you page to lure more hits without you webpage looking spammy? If so delete it.

2) Have you got similar content with your page and any other page on your site, another one of your websites, or you copied content from another site. If so and even if not do a complete makeover of your content to eliminate the possibility.

3) Have you got similar title tags or meta descriptions with other pages on your site, another one of your websites, or similar to another website? Then completely change the title or description to be sure.

4) Have you had any redirects to or from that page? Get rid of any redirects associated with the page.

5) Is you page loading too slowly? Check the cached version and see if your content is cleary seen. If not speed up you page to make sure google indexes it properly. Try reducing graphic sizes.

6) Is google confused whether your site is a http://www.mysite or a http://mysite? Go into Google Webmaster Tools and set which version you want.

7) Is google confused as to which is your homepage? Try restructing your titles to clearly show which is the mainpage. Set your sitemap priorities so your homepage has the highest priority.

8) If another page on your site comes up in searches instead of your homepage try removing most of the content on it to try and force the homepage to come up in searches. You can take a snapshot of your page and put it back on as an image instead of text.

9) Try blanking your homepage and wait for it to be indexed before putting new updated content back on and hope that fixes it. Use you next best page as a temporary landing page.

10) Check your page for any broken links and repair or remove. Use Xenu free download to help.

11) Get rid on any stupid popups that only annoy users.



I am sure there are other things to try but there is no time waiting for everything to sort it self out. Eliminate the possibilities!

Goodluck!

 

Very good information. Also some additional info from me:

12) Remove all monetization from your site (such as adsense). That helps convinceing Google that your site is legitimate.

 

Thats brilliant information, thanks for sharing that.

 

really helpful article thanks

 

All the above is correct from my experience. Follow all of the above and a new site is removed from the sandbox in roughly 8 months. On a side note the sandbox does exist and Google has a legitimate reason for it. Many sites only exist for their initial one year registration and then fade away. Google simply does not want to clutter their index with such websites. The more guidelines outlined above that are followed the more likely a site will come out of the sandbox faster. The only cases I see a site make it out faster is if an extremely authoritative site links to a website. Then Google has a reason to list your site faster since people are likely o value its content.

Does anyone else have suggestions on how to make it out of the sandbox faster? While I've done this for sometime, continuing education is key and I am always interested in learning more.

 

oh dear. i'm a newbie and until no i still can't understand why there is a big difference between http://www. and just http://. but since it is one of your tips, this is definitely one thing i'm doing wrong

 

The worst is when you haven't been sandboxed but just heavily penalized. I am not sure if they are the same thing or not, but my website passes that test you mention however traffic from google is very very low and has been for say a year now.

 

Hi,

These are very useful tips.
Now, I know something about sandbox.
Thanks for this informative post.

 

Which site a you referring too?

 

Thanks buddy

 

I've had a site that has been in the sand box and nothing I did could get it out. I just had to wait until I renewed the domain name and it should google that I wasn't some sort of one time spammer domain name that is dropped after a year.

 

I'm not sure that renewing the domain will have any effect as alot of business domain names can only be bought with 2 years max and you can't renew it until its due. If Google sandboxed all the domain near expiry then many business sites would disappear!

 

It really help, I will share it with my group.

 

Would you think that a bunch of links from ezine would be effective authorative links?

I've have had one sandbox issue with one of my sites about a year and a half ago and got out after about 6 weeks or so, it was my idiocy that put me there. Now when I launch a site, I put up 15 or 20 articles on ezine fairly quickly linking to it and have had no issues at all.

 

I don't think increasing your links has any impact on getting out of the sanbox!

 

I have also had luck with EZA in the past. Maybe 30 links from them and nothing from other sites.

 

cheers for this informative post.

 

Great post! Thanks alots Michaelr

 

Well I finally got my site out of the sandbox and this is what I did.

I used a subpage as a dummy for the homepage and it got all the traffic.
I tried everything else that i put in my original post and some more and still failed.
I deleted everything off the homepage except for a text link asking people to go to my subpage.
The homepage was restored to the index around one week after it was indexed again.
I put new content on my homepage and I'm back in business!

Sometimes the hardest thing to do has the best results!

 

this is a new idea that i've never heard before
something new to learn today thanx