the site i am optmising went live in around the beginning of april - since then i have be accumulating links , the majority of which contain my main keyword. I currently rank about 338th for it which is approximately what i ranked for it when i choose the keyword and altered by text copy - around the end of april. i have about 50 links with my keyword in it, but don't actually seem to be moving anywhere.(not that i expect 50 links to get me far )- i guess that i am in the "sandbox" - if i am - can i not actually progress anywhere until out of the sandbox? (not talking about getting good ranking - but just moving somewhere). also how long can the sandbox last? thanks
Just work on getting more back links and adding content - youll begin to see movement in a month or two (or less) hopefully.
The normal best guess is that the sandbox effect lasts about three months. So your earliest links should be kicking in about now and your newest won't have any impact for another three months possibly.
compar - you are suggesting that it will take my new (and old) links 3 months to take effect from when they were established - is this just applicable to new sites or is this just the way google deals with links period?
It doesn't appear to have much to do with the age of the site. Most of us now believe it has to do with the age of the links, as I said above. Now if you just add one or two new links it may not be a factor, but it seem if you start an aggressive linking effort then invariable they will land in the sandbox. The problem is that the phenomenon is so recent that I don't know anybody who feels they have completely come out of the sandbox yet. So the estimate on timing is exactly that, an estimate. Are links automatically quarantined for three months? Do they come online one by one? If you continue to aggressively ad links does that delay the impact of them all? Is it links from a single, or few, IP blocks that get sandboxed? Is it links with identical anchor text? Is it link form non themed pages? Is it only reciprocal links? There has been a great deal of speculation on all these questions. Nobody know the answers for sure. However what is pretty clear is that Google is delaying applying the impact of new links to SERP placement.
thanks compar, hmm if one of the theories is that the "sandbox" is caused by agressive linking - perhaps i (or my links) am not in the sandbox - i have only acquired around 50 links over a 3 month period - i would be surprised if that would have caused it to happen.
I tend to agree with the agressive linking = sandbox theory, and I also think it [no longer?] has relevance on the age of the site.
Dear Fluke Have you considered the harsh reality that your website, might not be as competitive as you thought. You positions might be a result of your website not being able to perform any better? Have you carried out a competitor analysis of the website? What are they doing that you could do better? Is your website in a Niche category? Have you checked your stats and seen multiple versions of Googlebot spider your website? If so are all the DC's there? These are questions I am sure you have asked prior to posting, but they are also important questions that people must ask before considering the Sandbox theory. As webmasters it is easy to blame our lack of skill on someone else, i.g Google and its supposed Sandbox? Sometimes the answers are closer to index.html Good luck anyhow! duenna