Solving the Google Sandbox

In response to Zamolxes

No because Google only publicly reports low PR pages. That's why Caryl with the help of PROG finds just low PR pages. But like Brian says, in fact there are some higher PR pages in the network because it has to be sidewide. I know of PR 5's and 6es which are regarded as high(er) PR. Google won't show them with the link command but they are definitely there.

Caryl,

Shawn will know the number of high PR pages, at least the base URL's because they determine the weight. With over a 1000 sites in the network (I believe) and up to 5 ads per page, there are probably at the very least (homepage only) a 1000 PR5 or higher links in the network.

Otherwise, someone should make a tool which extracts all Y's link: results and puts tem into a PR checker.

I do agree that there are still thousands of PR0-PR3 links so it's unlikely that someone with mediocre weight will get a dozen of high PR links. Brian's theory can indeed be partly disproven with this but Caryl's assessment of the Coop links doesn't hold true either.

 

Googles current method of reporting backlinks has made it nearly impossible to prove the effects of backlinking without performing some kind of controlled experiment.

You certainly can find no evidence from Google mere searches anymore.

Although the addition of links from the Co-op seems to have benefited our experiment page, unfortunately, the way the Co-op is set there is no way (I can tell) of knowing exactly what pages (and thus the PR of ALL of those pages) are linking to you from there.

Caryl

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TOPS30,

I am not sure what you think I was "asserting"?

I was only trying to show that the Co-op offered obviously a mix of both High AND low PRs and the article lead me to believe that the Co-op represented more High PRs.

There is no real way of knowing the number of High PR links a page is ACTUALLY getting from the Co-op.

One can ONLY assume!

Caryl

 

You didn't understand what I meant. I know google reports only low pr links and I'm sure there are high pr pages in the network. But the fact that you can find those low pr coop links via google disproves again Brian's sandbox-avoiding theory. (He was saying that coop is exclusively or mostly high pr)

 

Then I still don't understand what you mean...

Scraping (not recommended ofcourse) or manually entering all Yahoo link: result URLs and looping them through a PR checker will get you a good snapshot of PR aiming at your page. But it isn't Google's snapshot I know. And it's dynamic, changing every hour/every request. Not knowing is horrible...

 

I edited the post above to make it more clear. Basically Brian was saying that coop is exclusively or mostly high pr - and that is not the case - it most likely includes pages of a whole variety of pr- high and low.

 

I read it differently:

I would myself have said: The Co-op network has more high PR links to offer than his own network / standard link networks.

 

Would you deduce then based on the above (as Brian did) that high pr links will help you avoid the sandbox?

I for one don't.

 

I do think it is a part of the solution and probably a major part but I think there's a lot more involved. The only way for them to avoid manipulation by us SEOers is to make it almost infinitely complex. There will never be one solution, especially not one that covers all our situations.

 

I agree - there is no one solution - the "supreme" formula - high pr links may help but will not open the door to "search paradise" .... alone!

 

Who knows WHAT Google is reporting as PR these days, or what they are showing as backlinks? The best guess is that they are doing their utmost NOT to let anyone see PR (Google: Hiding PR) and I suspect the same with respect to returns from the link: query.

 

The fact is that if you check a bit more you can find high pr pages (pr 4 and above) even now with the google "link:" command.

I recently (a couple of days ago) saw a pr 6 in their "link:" results!

 

No, you saw a page identified as PR6 -- how? Toolbar PR? Google Directory PR? Either way, the only thing you can be sure of is that those values are probably inaccurate and out of date by now, and that they are by now probably intentionally out of date or inaccurate...

 

I can only say what I saw. I mean, everythingelse is speculation. And not necessarily correct.
For example: I recently (a couple of months ago) started 2 new websites, just a few days before the last toolbar pr update. They were crawled literaly just before the update and they only had by then 3-4 average low pr links pointing to each of them.
A few days later, after the update,the toolbar was showing for one pr2, for the other pr1. I would say that is pretty accurate - nothing hidden or out of date in my experience.

 

Well I can only say that your experience probably isn't the norm -- granted much of what one finds in forums (fora?) is rank speculation and blind guesswork, but nonetheless relying on Toolbar PR to provide you with accurate information about PageRank is the epitome of blind faith, if you ask me.

 

I partially agree, but I wouldn't push it to the extreme.
What I forgot to say is that I had an even newer site (still crawled before the toolbar update) whith more and better links pointing to it - I guess it just missed the update cycle somehow; it is still pr0. So, I guess if google will update the toolbar quarterly and given the growing amount of links to the site, at some point the toolbar pr becomes .... inaccurate.

What I mean is there might still be a logical explanation. And many forums cultivate some kind of paranoia because of things misunderstood or missinterpreted.

 

I contend that in fact your analysis is flat wrong (but I do so with love and admiration!! ) You are missing the most important aspect of PR in your theory.

I have seen a site which is new that ranked very well. How? One mortgage site was a part of a "Larger" network of sites. No reciprical obl that I could find with All i/b/l from "Authority" (One PR 7 for sure) and regular old range of links from a large network of sites. I didn't note the domain during my review as mortgage was not my focus at the time and it was provided by someone doing their own research focused on PR only. At that time, I felt and still feel it has nothing to do with PR and evaluated the sites offered that confirmed my own premise.

To my own methods which led me to this. I tracked for this key phrase "My Special Widget" on a regular basis, manually last 4 months up until beginning of last month, and with program after....never noted two specific sites in top 100 up until the last 60 days (Hey I had to go deep to find my site...lol) and absolutely watched them climb with every update; I Look at the b/l. When I analyzed both these sites (have since chased there links this month to...lol) after watching them jump up from nowhere last two months to #3 and #5 respectively, you might be surprised at what I found.

Site "A" had a mix of crap unrelated PR0 and a handfull of "Authority links" with "Authority" outbound links , with no "exchanges" to speak of excluding one with a authority Gov't site. This was when I did my initial analysis at the mid point of October and "A" was ranking in the 90's. Since the original Yahoo & G evaluation, tons of new i/b/l's links have shown up for site "A" with still no reciprical links much less the keyphrase in the anchor for most.

Site "B" came from nowhere as well. Same term.

ALL of the outbound links are only to "Authority" sites. The remaining are all one way i/b/l - Some will say age of site/domain as they are older 3 & 7 years respectively, however, both these sites have aquired a large number of NEW links (over not less than 800 each) a very short period of time as I've watched them grow, and as they did, so they grew in the serps.

(As a note, I evaluated the sites as one is gov't on is not and relates to my topic. I linked to both of them under a "competition" page that describes what each does....lol)

Why did they grow in the serps so fast? You have to follow me on this, and match it to PR principles in order to catch it. To me it now just seems to obvious and actually ironic...lol.

The minute G indexes a link from your site to another site, you have cast a Vote for that site. Every one has noted the significant delay in PR updates since I believe about June. I think this all plays in together...... Follow me now...and remember the PR principle.

So when I cast a Vote, that vote says site "B" is important. If G then follows that link at a later time only to find the site you're linking to has a link back to you, it sets you up for the sand box for those links. How?

I don't believe that G is hiding PR intentionally. I believe G may actually be doing detailed link analysis looking for reciprical links prior to doing a "Full" PR updating. This would certainly take time and require a full recalculation based upon comparative data which would explain the movement from monthly to quarterly. They must filter out the results.

Why would G bother filtering results???? Think interms of G doing a "Vote" recount in a disputed election..... and keep following

During this analysis, G must discount these new reciprical links to no value or to a percentage of value...similar to a hanging chad. I believe this is relevant to PR. I think the higher the PR, the less value the vote has. Why? Think in terms of SEO principals. A link to a high PR site is a principle part of SEO. However, a recipricle link to a PR0 site is considered a waste of time and generally not done unless desperate for a link, or the PR0 site actually has some pretty cool stuff on it. Think like an engineer....thinking like an SEO The Engineer know you want PR, so why would the new algorithum give you credit for that.....lol.....keep following...you'll get how this all works out....

So, what do I base this premise on? The PR principle itself and how each vote is counted. What do I mean by this?

In principal and fact, yes PR authority on a one way i/b/l definitely gives authority to the link, I also contend stongly any PR i/b/l can help (including 0's) as well so long as they are not reciprical and are a "True Vote" cast for your site. I believe related sites create stronger links, but are not necessary to count as a "Vote" for you.

This would 100% support G's premise of Site "A" pointing to Site "B" gives site "B" a "Vote" of importance. There is no way G can maintain the credibility of PR and the ranking algorithum any other way.

So, when you're out exchange links, you are defeating the most important aspect of G's PR algorithum. It's not the PR itself, but the "Vote" and how it is cast that makes PR important.

A standard technique of SEO is "creating" a vote. This goes againt the "Democratic" principles of natural PR and a sites natural "Votes". I truly believe the engineers at G hate SEO's for manipulating them and the precious PR. So saying, they are always looking for ways to defeat our tactics while not saying what they are doing.

This new game they have chosen to play is nothing more than a "link exchange" penalty or what I consider a "Voter Fraud" jail term.

This is what I based my premise on with my own theory a couple weeks ago in another forum that got me ragged as well...lol. That the minute you start exchanging links, your new links are "Jailed for Vote Fraud" (though I did not use this specific term). It is why I joined this co-op and believe it will make a difference.

I also believe this is why older sites are not affected as they are typically not link exchanging anymore or have any need to cast "Fraudulent Votes".

I don't believe there is anything more to the sandbox than that. I think we're all just over analyze it and forget the premise of PR to begin with, which many of you know by heart.

So, if you're in the co-op, and you are out "Exchanging Links" or committing "Voter Fraud" the benefit of the co-op may actually not be apparent in G.

So, no matter what anyone says....lol.....if you look at what PR is suppose to represent, and then look at what a Link Exchange is in relation to PR, well...you have now identified the reason for your sites "Jail Term". It's nothing more than a penalty for committing Voter Fraud....and during an election year to! Isn't that just ironic....lmbo

Cheers

 

IF (and that's a big IF) Google is penalizing or discounting "reciprocal links", I don't believe it is as simple as linking to a site that links back to you. It MAY be a funtion of relevance of that site to your site... but not based on mere reciprocity. That would make no sense at all to the PR principle.

 

Sounds interesting and again may be partially true in the sense that google somehow might give less weight to some reciprocal links.
However they still show many reciprocal links using the "link:" search - in fact it doesn't seem to me like they filter them out any more than other links.

On the other hand there can be good legitimate reasons for sites to link to each other (other than pr and link popularity) and I'm sure google knows that.

 

So does your Vote Fraud apply per page or per site?

I mean if link X on page 1 on site A links to page 2 on Site B but site B has link Z linking to site A's page 90, is that fraud?