There are times in this industry when I feel like giving up. Today, for example, while trying to research some theories about the sandbox, I began searching for a lengthy keyword phrase string - "Bridge Loans and Real Estate Purchases". Not coincidentally, I have an article on my site with this same title - http://www.avatarfinancial.com/artdetail.php?ARTICLEID=2. I began innocently by checking Google for the lengthy phrase without quotes. I didn't see my site, so I tried it with the allinanchor - #1. I tried it at Yahoo - #1. At MSN - #1. With allintext - #1, allintitle - #1. Then I started perusing Google's SERPs for the term 1 by 1 and made it to result 580 without finding my page. A search in Google with the term in quotes brought up my site as one of the only 3 sites in Google's index with the term exactly written that way. The page has been in Google's cache for a month - it's obviously in their index and has been crawled as recently as 10/12. What really depressed me was the number of sites listed in those 580 results - lots of spam, lots of sites and pages that link to my site, lots of sites with little or nothing to do with the topic. It can turn your self-confidence to pudding. Sometimes you just feel like tossing in the towel...
How many times have we seen something and thought "that's not right" ? Well it is the same with the google algo. The sandbox effect has been introduced (IMO) to highlight and 'monitor' anything that makes you think WTF! I have said this many times, and will say it again. An algorithm, is something that is pure maths. Introducing a 'competitive phrase' calculation into the equation is going to plae huge resource drain. better then that ANY term that steps outside of a set of parameters be sandboxed. This is how I see it. The sandbox is applied to any term that steps outside of the natural parameters for a set of 'expected' stats. natural linking etc.
DD - Yeah, its the #1 result for allinanchor and its pointed to in a lot places with the title as the anchor text. Guess we're both home this fine Friday night
Randfish: With the money your group has put into the site, I'd scout around for some older sites, with appropriate urls, anythng that might be purchased cheap and redevelop the old site. Maybe you can beat the heck out of the sandbox that way. Dave
Or wait till 2005. I've got a similar probelm, but think I may get out of sandbox in new year. Was your site created in 2004?
"What's wrong with sand boxes? They make great litter boxes and sometimes you can find perfectly good bits of sandwiches or cookies, as well as toys, left behind..." -- The Cat
Maybe we should start a 'Sandox Support Group,' where we can all vent and cry on eachother's sholders. I'm ready for a good cry, anyone want to join me?
I won't ask the question 'Is there a sandbox or is it a myth?' question What are the reasons why your site is not getting listed for a specific keyword phase is what you have to ask yourself. Do you need more links, more KW related content within the page etc. I know where you are coming from though I am trying to optimise a page for 'Florida villas' 'Florida villa' and I've spend hours getting links, optimising the page, ensuring I have strong IBL's to the page. As of today it's in the 60's and not shifting much. You have to keep plugging away.. I hope my clients realise how much time I spend trying to further improve traffic to my website lol Darren
Yeah, but I have created a whole website about a topic which is nowhere to be seen in Google. And I have created one page on my existing site on this topic and it ranks in the top5! What else could it be?
Wow! Going back to RandFish's original message... He must have been reading my mind! I am a very logical person and, after days and weeks of research, I can't make any sense at all out of why some of my pages rank well and others don't. As for the sandbox, I have a new site that I first posted to the web on March 17, 2004. I've long since abandoned it as hopeless! Yes, I have a couple dozen high-quality, natural links, a reasonable PR4, and good on-page optimizing for this site. Doesn't matter - nothing I do changes anything, not even for low-popularity keywords. Google is working hard to kill the spammers, and is getting us little guys instead. Sorry about the whining, but my frustration level and disappointment is very high these days.
Could it be that we are overthinking the "sandbox" effect? It could be as simple as google taking a look at the page - if it sees 5-10 outbound links in a row, with little or no surrounding text - than google discounts the links. IE If outound links appear on the page like: link1 link2 link3 link4 link5 link6 .... Google says, "I don't think so" to them and dramatically reduces their effect and delays their inclusion?
Well I won't know for a few days, but I can attest to this: I just bought a handfull of domains with which to build a link platform. On one site, G would come every day, grab the home page and leave. I could not seem to get G to come inside and have a look around. Even alexa came and went down a directory. Another domain I set up with very similar content, was and is currently being spidered by G. It's so lovely watching the log file grow, line by line and seeing googlebot on each one And what I have found in my struggle to figure out why G would make itself at home on one domain but not the other is that the second domain was a previously existing domain and there are a few old links floating around in the internet ether still pointing to it. Now, for fun, I've set up space on a new server with a new IP on a different class C and I'm going to move my first site over. It will be interesting in the comming days to see if G continues it's "ring and run" or actually comes inside and entertains itself. I'll keep you posted.
Hi All: It seems like "just when we think we know all the answers, they change the questions." If anyone can show me an example of logic in any aspect in the world in general, it would make my day. To avoid disappointment, I have learned to live without expecting logic from individuals, institutions or governments. Cordially,
I do not belive that it is as simple as Sandbox. Niche site started March 2004 reached No1 out of 180000 in July Niche site started June 2004 reached No10 of 160000 in October But from other experience, I believe there is a sofisticated overoptimisation penalty and it has even some memory and is very difficult to rid off. And although the age of the site and IBLs is an factor, it is not a major one and there should be others, more important factors we do know. The speed of the link building, the low variability of anchor text, even unnatural internal linking stucture, ...
I have similar search issues with our web site www.provisioncapitalcorp.com. Who knows what is actually the criteria for high rankings. Rob