Google's Aging Delay for New Sites

But, PR seems to be gravely overestimated for Google ranking...at least in my industry.

For one of the most competetive keyword combinations the PR for the sites are as follows:
PR4 PR3 PR3 PR4 PR0 PR5...
If PR was such a big deal, shouldn't they be in order? If not, keyword density seems far more important but far less emphasized (or talked about) in these forums.

just 2 cents

 

PR is only a component of the algorithm used to rank pages. If after taking into account all the other criteria, two website have the same score they will be ordered via pagerank. If you look in the google directory, websites are ordered by Pagerank so google does think higher pagerank sites are the best.

 

I started a site in December 2003 and it ranked very well for all my keywords for the first month or two, receiving 100's of visitors from google then it completly disapeared from google for about a year.

Until I got a listing in yahooo.

Then google stated to slowly rank pages using searches that didn't include only popular keywords or rank pages that didn't have only popular keywords in the title. If it included a mix of keywords e.g. popular and not popular in the title then the page would rank in the top 10 for a phrase which is included in the tittle.

Google also ranks the front page of the site in the top ten for phrases that contain the most popular keywords (e.g. the ones in the title of the index.html page) plus any other random keyword/s found on the page. But if I search for only the keywords in the title of the page, that is my most popular keywords, my site is nowhere to be found. Even if I look back for hundreds of pages I don't find my index page using my popular keywords. But I do find sub directories on my site.

However, if I search for all in title, all in url, all in links using the most popular keywords for my site, my site ranks number 1-3. Also if I search for the keywords then click on related to the number 1 listing, my site is the first site in the list of related sites. Infact I seem to pick up a reasonable amount of traffic this way.

My site has a PR of 6 and is listed in the yahoo directory.

Does it sound like my site is still in some kind of sandbox for its most popular keywords? Could it be possible to be in the sandbox longer for very popular keywords, than for not so popular keywords?

It would actually be a great relief to know my site was in the sandbox because untill I read about this sandbox theory today I thought my site was being penalised and I couldn't figure out why

Thanks in advance for any help. This thread has been very helpful.

 

iconrate,

How is your site coming up for keywords? Your site can be indexed and in the SERPS and be seo´d to perfection but may not show up on competitive keywords because it has been hit by a filter - sandboxed.

If it does come up well for terms in MSN and Yahoo but is nowhere for the same search on Google then the chances are your site is in the sandbox.

 

I don't like to worry anyone about the sandbox - but my travel site has NEVER come out of the sandbox in over a year and now does not rank for any search terms at all. I have only ever seen one site come out of the sandbox (not say say that they don't but that I just haven't seen another with sufficiently competetive keywords come out that I have followed). Also, the one site that I have seen and followed through the sandbox is still outside the top 10, despite being PR6 with lots of backlinks. The SERP for that site is Silver Jewellery.

I think - and this is from my own personal experience - don't overdo keyword density - don't overdo links too fast - mix anchor text. In fact, keep SEO to a minumum and hope and pray that google do away with the sandbox. As MattUK said "I think Google may be shooting themselves in the foot with this policy" I tend to agree.

 

from my limited experience, the penalty a new domain receives depends on the number of results for a given keyword (how competitive the keyword is). the less competitive the keyword is, the higher a new domain will rank for it.

it's a scaled system relative to the keywords, so if keyword1 has a few hundred results it'll rank well, keyword2 has a few thousand results and ranks a little worse, and say keyword3 has a million results and it won't rank at all. if it's a non-targeted keyword (ie. local, eastern, etc) it doesn't seem affected by the penalty.

now if you combine your keywords, keyword1 keyword2 might put you in the top 5 without problem, but keyword1 keyword3 won't rank at all.

a real world example, let's say i'm trying to rank for mittagong in the southern highlands, searching for mittagong gets me on the front page. then if i search southern mittagong i come up as 1 and 2 with southern not really being a competitive keyword. now here's the strange thing, if i search for mittagong highlands i'm nowhere.

the thing is, if keyword1 and keyword2 are used, 99.9% of the time, keyword3 will be on the same page, but as it's fairly competitive, you just can't rank using it. i've noticed it with a lot of different combinations on different sites, but in the initial new domain period (3 to 12 months), you just can't get results on competitive keywords. once you're out of the new domain trial period (sandbox or whatever), the penality is lifted and you start ranking for any of those words.

i could be wrong of course, but from what i've noticed, it definitely seems to be the way it's working.

 

I have been saying this for over the last year now, that the age of the site and its links are the most important factors in googles algo. IMHO PR has very little to do with the algo and serps.

Sure I believe in relation to links you can bomb your site with purchased links and get a top 20 ranking, but if the site is reported or you lose any of those links at all within 6 months, your site will fall like a rock from google.

 

If you site is 40-45 days old send one email with proper subject to google here is the email: <help@google.com>, They will update the Pr table for your site!

 

Same thing happened to my new site.

It's number 2 for key words 150th GSAB. (a small National Guard unit out of New Jersey) But try the more competitive keywords like "Military Wallpaper", and I'm not even on the map .

 

That is very useful information, I did not know that. I am going to have to try this to see if it works. Thanks Imran.

 

Is this really true? Have you tried it?

 

A backdoor to the google pr?! That sounds like dreamland to me! What do you mean by "proper subject"?

 

Cant see this being true, as if they dont have enough email to contend with never mind everyone asking for a PR update

 

i agree... sounds pretty bogus to me also.

 

Your subject should be, My Site Pr is not updated or assigned, unfortunatly I dont have the copy of the mail which I sent to google.
It actually had details about my site and asking them their problems why not updating my sites PR, and other stuff, within 4 hours my sites got PR. quick work!

 

so they just gave you PR just like that? do you mind if I ask you what PR you got? what if your site already has PR but you want a higher PR? can i write them a letter requesting a PR7 when i really have a PR3? what about rankings? Can i write them a letter and ask if they'll rank my site higher because it's 'better' than everyone elses?

does anyone else realize i just wrote a post with all questions? does anyone else think this sounds a little fishy?

 

there have been a few reports out on Google validating incoming links late as well.

 

Have asked not even a 7 year kid even think twice to ask.
I never said google's help desk will manually, what exactly I mean was If your PR table was not updated then you can send them and ask for a help, If you are lucky enough your PR table will be updated but no manually, they are not going to assign ranks based on the emaiol you send to them.
my sites have got the PR.
My site which I will disclose only one out of many. http://mypnthemes.com is exactly 34 days old, It gets very good traffic has backlinks from very good PR sites, its pr is now 3,. I hope it will improve in the next google update!
I hope you will make sense out of it!

 

The adminsistering of PR requires the whole database to be queried not just your site. For example it will need to look at all the links pointing at your domain aswell as all the outgoing links. Lot of hassle for one webmaster requesting PR.

There is noway google will do this. All I can say is Imran either had a faulty toolbar and its working now or his PR was at the back of the cue for updating.

 

I have quite a few sites that couldn't get ranked for about 6-8 months. I think it is an "ageing delay" as some people call it, put on newly registered domains.

Even though it is a pain, I personally like it. It benefits those of us that are in it for the long run and not just out to make a quick buck.