Yahoo has a sandbox. How long does it last?

Call it whatever you like, Yahoo does have some kind of sandbox/filter, which affects certain sites. Just because some people haven't experience it, doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

Most of my sites haven't had this problem, but one site was released, EXACTLY six months from when the site was first indexed.

 

i tried to do a blog on gambling, but figure out it is probably too much for me to handle, at least for now.

 

Ok, before I go any further, I will let everyone know that I have SEOed some of the largest and most difficult industries. Eg: Pharmacy, Adult, Casinos, Travel, SEO sites. All sites are PR 5/6/7 have went through the sandbox and came out on or near the top.

Ok, this is why I still feel Yahoo has a sandbox or for lack of a better word an age filter combined with unique content.

For one of the industries I built for that is very saturated for its subject it took Yahoo 3 years to look at the entire site. Yahoo would only index 100 of 2000 pages. After 3 years they decided to look at the entire site. When they did it went right to the top of the rankings.

Here is another example that will really blow your minds. I can take a pharmacy site that currently only has 300 of 5000 pages indexed after 2 years on yahoo. PR 6 in Google, no secret black hat tricks. I can change the index page on the site to a totally different subject that makes no sense such as "purple giraffes that eat cucumbers". Within 24 hours, Yahoo indexed the complete site. Interior pages that they had no info on went to the top.

Now if that isn't a sandbox then I don't know what is? It sure is one hell of a saturation filter if you don't want to call it a sandbox.

So, for those of you in industries that are very challenging and requires careful precise and patient SEO I suggest if your brave enough to throw up a different index page for a day or two. Watch what happens to your sites interior pages when Yahoo sees something that they know nothing about. Try "Green Kangaroos that Play Football".

In summary......I wish I could take the index page on some very large sites and change the theme to something totally pointless so that Yahoo would index the entire site. But wait, I can't because that would be wrong I would lose first page ranking on Google.

So....I wait and wait until Yahoo says "time is up, you haven't paid your $299 come and play with the rest of the big boys"

Hope this really helps people to more insight into how Yahoo works.

 

Its unstable compared to Google but I've found most of my websites start receiving traffic from yahoo in weeks, not months.

 

Also, just to mention that I like to experiment with highly ranked sites to get into the heart of how search engines work. You cant just do this with simple sites. You just need to hold your breath and go for it and you really learn alot. For that one site I changed the index page and sacrificed $200 in a days commission to learn what I did. I don't mind taking a daily loss if I can learn something that most people would regard as suicide.

I also have a PR 6 site in another industry that I regularly experiment with. It ranks at the top in its industry and lately I have been playing with the keyword ratio. I set the keyword ratio from a 10% up to 12% and within 5 hours it dropped ranking . I put it back to 10% and it came right back up to where it was.

Point being...you can really learn some strange things when you get brave and don't mind sacrificing a few extra $$$ to learn something for the future.

 

You can get indexed in Yahoo extremely quickly using RSS feeds and certain blogging methods.

As time goes on, sites I build are starting to be affected less by sandboxing factors, and I start to believe the majority of those who believe they're stuck in the proverbial Yahoo sandbox are imagining it. Either that or it's too easy to circumvent, hence the lack of issue with it.

 

Nope. As everyone already said, no sandbox

 

But everyone didn't already say, ablaye.

Pete

 

Did anyone read my 2 posts above?? I will summarize quickly here then.

Explain this one......

I can take a 3 year old PR 6 site that has 6000 pages indexed in Google and only 500 indexed in Yahoo.

I can change the index page to something totally unrelated to the main subject of the site and yahoo will spider all 6000 interior pages within 24hours.

When I put the site back to normal with the correct index page Yahoo will drop the 6000 pages and go back to the regular 500 pages being indexed.

Explain that one then. That acts exactly as a sandbox or "age filter or we already have too many sites that have this info"

 

I read it Seobiznezz - nice bit of information there. Thanks.

Feel free to spread any other 'insider' style information.. it's becoming a very 'What the fuck is going on, what should I and what shouldn't I be doing' sort of business SEO is. Very dissalusioning.

Pete

 

This doesn't prove that there is a sandbox. If there were many people saying that it takes 9 months or longer to rank for higher competition search terms in Yahoo then maybe there is a chance that Yahoo has a sandbox. Right now, it might take 2 months at the most for me to see a new site show up in Yahoo. Sometimes it takes that long to see an update to their algo. So I don't see any evidence of a sandbox.

 

I'm new in this field. But I have a site, where I just put a number of unrelated topics and both yahoo and google index all the pages within 2-3 days.

that's compared to my average 1-3 months for other sites.

 

After 3 months, i am being ranked high in Yahoo for certain keywords.

 

Looks like after close to a year my SERPs are starting to raise for Yahoo. Google started letting my site out of its sandbox about a month ago as well.
Getting high PR sites to link to my site seemed to work - as well as directory loading. Lots of hard work though!

 

From what I've experienced, Yahoo has a bit of a "sandbox" for sites. I think a lot of repetitive content or pages with very little unique content won't make it in. Also, there seems to be a threshold for how much about a particular topic Yahoo wants in its index. For example, If your site isn't a "authority" about gambling, Yahoo won't index much because there are a million other gambling sites already out there. Thus, Yahoo doens't need another 22,000 pages on gambling. It might take 500 or so and if your site becomes an "authroity" site, it might index the rest, but Yahoo is very fickle with its indexing of sites to start with. Also, Yahoo really likes certain kinds of pages, but not other kinds of pages. It's up to you to figure out which is which.

 

YESSSSSSSSSSSSss, Finally someone who sees what I have been seeing. You can only notice this if you are in industries with many related sites. You are exactly right, if a site is in a subject that they have alot of information on then they don't index your entire site.

I happen to have a pharmacy and it only has 500 pages indexed out of around 10000.
But....if I change the subject of the index to something meaningless, all of a sudden they spider the whole site.

EG: Yahoo Search Engine- Site subject is pharmacy= We have 10000 pharmacy sites, therefore only spider 10% of available pages. Query B: If site owner pays $299 spider 100% of site Query C: If $299 submission not paid after 24 months Index 100% of site.

EG; Yahoo Search Engine- Site subject is Pink carrots= We have 10 sites with pink carrots, therefor spider 100% of site. Payment not required.

 

Yahoo sandbox was precisely 90 days to hit top10 for a 1 million searches a month keyword.

 

Makes sense to me, considering how fast the 'Net is expanding, and how much of that expansion is garbage, i.e. folks trying to make a quick buck with cookie-cutter / spammy sites.

 

Sorry I still don't see any evidence of a Yahoo sandbox. Actually Yahoo is my best friend while I wait to get out of the Google sandbox.

 

I think we need to be clear about the terms we are using. I think what Blackbeard is describing is a "Y! filter," not a "Y! sandbox."