Just want to add some information to this thread since I've experienced the same a original poster with 2 of my sites. I kept on link building at a very slow rate and added new content and it seems both my sites is slowly gaining ranks back. Both my sites was listed among the last for their keywords, but they slowly move up the list. So it IS possible to get the penalized sites back on track with a little effort. I worked on backlinks with very different anchored texts and added content about 2 times each week, and now 3 weeks later it seems to payoff. Im still not back to where I started, both sites was in top10 for their keywords before I was penalized, but hoping to be there again soon. Keep linkbuilding with good natural links using different anchored texts and update content if possible. Thats what worked for me.
That makes a lot of sense. Yes, 2000 low quality links will never get indexed in even 3 weeks. I also believe you are sandboxed. With a couple of strong links you could have perhaps retained your position and gained some more but thank you for sharing the info!
Also, droppiong in search results doesn't always mean that you have been penalized. There are a lot of other reasons why one might be experiencing poor SERPs but with a little work and patience shown, you will eventually get back to where you were.
Good post.. Is there any tool for checking my ranking for a site for a keyword without having to look thru SERPs and never find my site?
Please use this tool You will see real site ranking through Google DC's directory from that tool, that results are according to most of Google.com worldwide results (except USA). I think after this fluctuate ended, the Google USA results will out come according to results from DC's.
I believe it is much better when you build your backlinks slowly. But do not forget you should do it continually.
An informative thread. i thought I'd share my latest experiences: Site A: A one year old travel site, got great rankings for the first week (Feb 2007), since then rankings plummeted. Right now, serps seem to be climbing, but slowly - no sudden jump to the top page in google or anything - search terms that previously brought up my site at 1000+, right now (1 year after the site launch), I'm hanging about at around 150ish. Google traffic remains next to nothing, MSN traffic, and rankings, are far higher. For this site, I'd built relatively low quality inbound links very slowly for the first 6 months, but for the last 5 months I've built inbound links much quicker (webmaster tools shows 1200 inbound links right now). The sites PR is 5, it's still sandboxed after a year. Frustrating.... Site B: another travel site, in a similar niche, but more country specific, that is now three months old. I was more selective with where the incoming links came from. Also haven't tried to build too many. Almost all the inbound links (about 100 at the moment) are from do-follow blogs and forums, plus just a few directories. No sandbox was every experienced, and this much smaller site gets far more traffic from, and has far better rankings in google. Pagerank is still 0 (though i guess it'll be 4 on the next update). My conclusions, having been informed by this thread? I guess best be selective about the inbound links you get to a new site if you want to avoid the sandbox.
I think you avoided sandbox because you targeted local results, probably low competition. I don't say that sandbox can't be avoided, but most post i can read on this forum shows signs of sandbox, probably it depends on competition.