One of my sites recently grew too fast I guess, and got dumped by google into the sandbox. I've heard that the same things that can help your PR will also help to return you from the sandbox, is that true? Is there anything I can do, or am I pretty much limited to waiting it out?
I don't know if I read this right. Well for one pick a niche with little competition. Then just don't throw up a site with a bizillion pages. So if you chose to do a datafeed site add several pages a day ... yes it can be done but be consistenent. Make it look like you are working on it dailey instead of just anouncing to the world I have just created a 2000 page website in a day. Don't chase the most competitive search terms ... I have to ask how long were you on top before being sandboxed about 2-3 weeks?
Actually very often the name "Sandbox" is used for filters. Anyway the best way to get out from Sandbox and filters are links.
A regular update of your content and a related back links will help your site to be out of sandbox. Good luck
Just to add to what's been said: while backlinks are indeed essential to working your way out of the sandbox, you need to be sure that you are gaining quality backlinks from already established sites to help speed up the process. You'll probably find that building up a massive catalogue of backlinks from fairly unimportant websites will do little to improve the situation.
Be careful who you link out to. Get rid of as many outbound links as you can and "nofollow" the ones you can too.
I think one of my sites got sandboxed once I had a manual submission to 500 article directories done.. But I could be wrong...
Wow. Thats a new one.... If my 'net terminology is correct, I believe 'sandboxed' means that your site is brand new, and is awaiting proper ranking by the system. i.e. Wait in line like everyone else before you see ANYTHING. But you mentioned that you were already on top, and THEN got dumped. This tells me that a filter was adjusted/put-in-place and you were one of the many people caught in the cross fire. Like the others have stated - Don't sweat it. Worry more about building a great site, with lots of content, and links. Keep in mind, that there is NO easy quick fix.
Well, like everyone else said, get a lot of good links, submit to a lot of directories. Remember, incoming links can never hurt you, it always either improves the site, or doesn't effect it very much at all. And also, don't go for the most competitive keywords first, go for the less competitive ones first, and then build your way up.
Yeah, maybe my site just got ditched from Google. I'm not sure why that would happen though, nobody really linking to it and no links coming out of it! It used to be that it would be the #1 result if you searched for the name of the site, and now it doesn't even appear? I thought that this phenomenon is included in the sandbox effect?
The one sure fire way that I have used to get my sites out of the sandbox is getting them listed in dmoz. Keep in mind though that once listed it can take google a while to re-download the dmoz directory (60 days was the longest once listed in dmoz.) http://dmoz.org
I agree with newbish. The only way to out of SandBox is to be listed in DMOZ or backlink from "google trusted" site.