Is my site in the sandbox?

My three-month-old site has a PR4 and some very good links on PR4 and PR5 pages. When I use the allinanchor command, my top three keywords are returned in positions 40, 69, and 70.

SERP results are still returning the same keywords above 100 …

I should mention that my keywords are VERY competitive.

Does this indicate that I’m sandboxed …?

 

I doubt it.

Why is it called the sandbox and not the dog house?

 

Thanks for the reply.

The same keywords are returned on Page one by both Yahoo and MSN ... is this indicative of future google SERP placement?

 

The sandbox is a filter that applies to competitive keywords. It lasts at least 3 months, but others claim their sector is closer to a year. Matt Cutts has said it doesn't apply to all sites - but imo, anything competitive is sandboxed.

Your rankings with MSN and Yahoo do not indicate what your google results will be - in fact, a high ranking with MSN and Yahoo can mean you won't rank as well with google because google's algorithm has a much lower tolerance for site optimization (keyword density, etc). MSN and Yahoo are also far more accepting of non-relevant backlinks than google. It's very hard to rank high in all three for extremely comptetive keywords. I have many #1 rankings in Yahoo and MSN, AND google, but only one site out of 50 has consistently ranked number 1 in all three during the last eight years. Non-competitive keywords are a different story, and would be much easier.

You should check to see how many backlinks google shows for the top ranking sites and then compare it to your site. Google doesn't show all backlinks, but you're comparing apples to apples. Forum links and internal links seem to have been greatly devalued with Jagger. Google is all about revelent backlinks - MSN takes anything - yahoo seems to be somewhere inbetween. Google seems to give site age more weight than the others too.

 

That pretty much hit the nail on the head mjewel.

Yahoo and MSN results mean nothing with regards to Google results because Google criterea is different to Yahoo's and MSN's.

 

Perfect summation of the differences between the "Big Three".

 

mjewel,

Your explanation is much appreciated.

Using the link: command, I can see that google has only 19 backlinks listed for my site.

The sites in the top ten positions for the most competitive keyword have:

1.) 1,690
2.) 90
3.) 90
4.) 408
5.) 62
6.) 7
7.) 32
8.) 6
9.) 49
10.) 36

-Would I therefore be correct in assuming that if I can build 100 strong, relevant backlinks, I will likely be well placed in the SERPS? Only one of the above sites has a higher PR (5) than my (PR4) site ...

Or is it not quite so simple?

 

Its not that simple.

Certainly if you don't get as many links then you won't rank alongside these sites.

But even if you do get as many links google will hold your site back as it is newer than the others.

 

Hi

I have a site that appears in page 4 or so in Google but with allinanchor it is number 2. It lists number 1 in MSN for the same keywords.

Can anyone explain what allinanchor actually does?

Andy

 

Question: Is the Google Sandbox real or is it just Google taking their time to index new sites?

Jim Catanich

 

My new site got indexed by all three within a month, but the traffic is heavily skewed towards MSN (50%), followed by Google (20%), Yahoo (10%), and the rest from various sources.

I always thought Google traffic is really hard to get, but it is Yahoo that is proving a challenge right now. I guess Google's sitemaps have helped a lot.

 

Well yahoo has a algorithm that is different from that of google's

 

Hi i have one site www.vigrx.org.uk ...he is 7 months old but now he is N1 in google ...chek keyword Vigrx. My question is how my site up in google(theory sandbox is 8-9 months) ?

 

i think link Exchange and googe backlinks

 

But in all i would say that if your website is new (less than 6 months old) and has rankings under less competitive keywords rather tahn your main keywords then the likelihood is that you will have to continue working on your site until Google feels it has aged enough. Then you should start to see your website climb the listinsg for your main keywords.