How to know if a website is in sandbox or penalty?

My website suddenly drop the ranking from top 10 to now out of top 100 about a month ago. Waited for so long yet it didn't get back to normal. So is there a way to check if my site already been sandboxed or being penalty?

 

There is no such tool available to find out that your website is in sandbox. But its obvious that when a site is in sandbox it doesnt appears anywhere in SERPS with any non competitive keywords even. The best way to get out of sandbox is to increase linkage, but it will get out only after a period of time which is not fixed one.

 

New site? I have seen the phenomen that new sites (domains) ranks very well for some weeks before they hit the sandbox in Google.

How long? How many months?

Yes, there is a pretty good way. Take your title or a keyword that you obviously SHOULD rank in the #1 or in top 10 (like company name or something). Check the rankings in MSN and Yahoo. If you are in the top 10 or #1 in those and in Google you cannot find your site even on page 5 you know that it is in the sandbox.

About penalty, check your domain with whois.sc and look at the status. If it says blacklisted, it is blacklisted. This is only one little way I know of checking this but Google has probably more than 50 different penalty filters ...

 

Yes, it's a new site on subdomain. Have waited for about 1 month. The site previously ranked top 10 for almost a month too.

It's listed among top 10 in Yahoo and MSN, so I can assume that it's sandboxed? Is getting links the only way to get out of sandbox faster?

 

Ok, my theory:

The site now hitted the Google sandbox which happens to probably all new sites.

Get out of the sandbox faster?

Hmm, speculations:

1. Get more backlinks and from high PR pages.
2. Get listed in DMOZ
3. Get listed in Yahoo dir.

Speculations only ...

 

Why get more backlink will help to get out of sandbox?

 

I don't know where they got those data but more backlinks does not put you out of the sandbox. This is totally false!

 

Yes that could be true. How would google see if it is a spam site or not? Good question.

 

So, what's the most reliable way to get out of sandbox faster?

 

I am wondering what guidelines constitute being sandboxed?? I have a website that I created 3 weeks ago. It is completely indexed using site: command in Google. I am also ranked in serps under some of the keyphrases that I am promoting .

So what exactly signifies to a webmaster that a site is sandboxed? Can anyone offer a clear definition?

 

I think only Google can answer to that.

There is no "clear definition". It has been found out that probably all new web sites goes in a filter by Google which makes the sites to rank low for several months. This has became to be called "the sandbox". It was Googles solution to stop spam as spam sites were created each day, ranked high and when Google found the site to be spam and penalized it the webmaster only created new ones. So Googles solution was to basically penalize all new web sites. For more info you should read some articles. Use Google and search for google sandbox.

 

Thanks Jim. I have already read many articles about this but nowhere does it explain what I am asking. Guess this is more of Google's secret sauce .

I have recently been very focussed on this, trying several different experiments designed to break out of this prison!! That's why I am very interested in a clear definition. I think I have broken out but can't seem to verify this...

Site online for 3 weeks
site: command= fully indexed
link: command= showing
serps= some keyphrases only

 

Hi Homer,

The site command and link command would still work. The only thing effected is the rankings in the SERPs. I have observed in three occassions with new sites (and domains) that I launched the phenomena that first it ranks very well for about 3-5 weeks and then it hits the sandbox for several months which means that it ranks very low compared what it is supposed to.

I don't know what breaks it but I heard some theories about that if you get into the dmoz or yahoo dir it will go faster - I am not sure.

 

As a preventative spam measure, G has put in place this sandbox filter for all new sites, it doesnt pick and chose what it may think is a spam site.

 

In a nutshell, your new site wont rank for the "money term"...

 

There is no time prediction you can make on a sandboxed site. Just ignore google and concentrate on your content, add fresh pages often and build your audience using Y!, MSN and other promotional methods.

A sandboxed site is very easy to spot. You basically appear in the 40-500 serp results regardless of page rank or seo done on the site. All operators will render a normal result i.e site: link: ..etc will work just fine.

There's a lot of buzz and even some geeks who offer services that will put you out of the sandbox - those are just unreliable information and subterfuge for cash.

Everything on the 'net around the sandbox is pure speculations cuz no one really knows....

 

Exactly, I agree.

 

Well, yes and no.. it is "money terms" I rank for sites that the keywords are off base. For example: Term "seo-sucks" Ranks for my joke site seo-sucks.com it ranks 3for my datacenter over two articles. The site is less than 2 months old. We ranked it really quickly etc.

So if you need BS SEO advice or just a laugh.. seo-sucks.com ( LOL)

Real SEO we talk about at other places

The sandbox-- Like the few posters above..Know one outside of the Big G really knows, it's all speculation on how the algorithm and the filters are determined. I would render it is based upon the pure amountof results for that keyword that trips the switch, I say 1 million results and the filters are activated (just a guess).

Eric

 

Not ALL new sites. Just 99% of them.

 

Really? That would be something new to me. Tell me, which ones are the 1%?