Is the ‘sandbox’ effect connected to the www and non-www sites situation? Or am I dealing with two different issues? I have a site www.thailand-huahin.com , which was created in April of this year. The default page is PR 3 but many other pages within my site are PR 4. My site is doing OK with not important KW but is deep in the sand for the main KW Hua Hin. The story must be familiar. The site was doing well for a week and then was buried in the sand. I think, the Mc Dar tool confirms the sandbox effect for my site: There is another site www.hua-hin.4t.com at #9 for KW hua hin. This site has 6 pages, PR3, *A* 35 and 40 Ylinks. My site has 138 pages, PR3, *A* 16 and 164Ylinks and is ranked #600 plus or often outside of #1000. I have noticed that in addition to my site www.thailand-huahin.com there is another non-www site http://thailand-huahin.com. Is the non-www website to do with Google sandbox effect or is there something wrong with my htaccess file? It looks to me that the non-www site http://thailand-huahin.com influenced the PR of the default page of my www.thailand-huahin.com Thanks in advance for any comments and suggestions.
You are confusing two separate issues. See this thread: http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?t=4881&page=1&pp=10 -- especially the article referenced by randfish. Nothing to do with "sandboxes". This is the same site and eventually search engines like Google seem to figure that out -- however, it may help for you to try to rationalize your links so that all point to the www version. First, make sure that ALL references to your site include the www part. Next, in requesting or arranging links from other sites, ask them to use the www version. Finally, track down backlinks NOT using the www version and email the webmaster politely requesting that the link be edited.[/QUOTE]
See http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?t=4881&page=1&pp=10 -- exactly what the sandbox is and isn't is still rather unclear, if you ask me...