16 replies to this topic

[andruha]

Hi,
Here is what happened:
I made a wordpress blog about 2 months ago and it was indexed in about a week or so. After that I did some social bookmarking, got some backlinks (about 50) added a bunch of content etc. In few days, I was 15th for my main keyword which was awesome! Then I help adding a few backlinks here and there (some were spammy comment backlinks). But then, all of the sudden, my site disappeared from Google. Not moved to some XX page, it got deindexed. Site:http://mydomain.info (its a .info domain) returns a bunch of my pages, but index (main) page IS NOT THERE!!! My index page was a static page made in wordpress. At first I thought it was a google dance, but it has been about 5 days now and its still not indexed.
Was my website "sandboxed"?
Also, I noticed something weird in the webmasters tools:

Its still says that I'm ranking for my keyword!!!

btw, it's not a customized search from Google. I tried it on my cellphone, school's computer and my friend from another state!!

Could it be because I have some ClickBank adds on my new site? Could it be because I got "too" much traffic to a new site? (about 100-150/day) Also, I made a newbish mistake when I first made the site and interlinked my sites. (removed after few days). Other sites, however have not been affected.

Thanks for any help! I'm looking forward to your responses. My main question is:
What I Sandboxed?

[Jill]

There's no longer any such thing as a Google sandbox, so no.

[andruha]

There's no longer any such thing as a Google sandbox, so no.

Can you explain what happened then? Or how can i fix this?

[chrishirst]

Its still says that I'm ranking for my keyword!!!

Well you probably are somewhere, it's simply that YOU can't see it.

[Jill]

It's impossible to say without studying your situation, but what happens when you do a site: search?

My guess is that your content just wasn't unique enough for Google to care to keep it indexed and showing, but that's just a guess. The spammy links back likely gave them the first clue that the site was probably not worthwhile.

[ttw]

There's no longer any such thing as a Google sandbox, so no.

Jill: When did the Google sandbox stop being an issue?

Thanks

Rosemary

[Jill]

Well, it wasn't a sandbox to begin with, but an aging delay.

It's been a good couple of years now, I believe, since that aging delay has seemed to go bye-bye.

[andruha]

Well you probably are somewhere, it's simply that YOU can't see it.

No, I searched for site:http://MYSITEDOMAIN.info and a bunch of pages from site came up, EXCEPT for the index page.

[andruha]

It's impossible to say without studying your situation, but what happens when you do a site: search?

My guess is that your content just wasn't unique enough for Google to care to keep it indexed and showing, but that's just a guess. The spammy links back likely gave them the first clue that the site was probably not worthwhile.

The thing is that my index page was 100% unique and it got deindexed. Some of the pages on the site weren't 100% unique, but they still rank somewhere in google

[chrishirst]

The thing is that my index page was 100% unique and it got deindexed.

It happens from time to time.

Some of the pages on the site weren't 100% unique, but they still rank somewhere in google

And so does your "index" page. It's simply that YOU can't see where it does.

Check your site logs. If traffic has dropped to absolutely nothing from Google referrals then start wondering what the problem may be.

[andruha]

It happens from time to time.

And so does your "index" page. It's simply that YOU can't see where it does.

Check your site logs. If traffic has dropped to absolutely nothing from Google referrals then start wondering what the problem may be.

Lol, no it doesn't. It doesn't rank anywhere...
I checked on my PC, on my cell, on a proxy, my index page is nowhere to be found.

if it was, "site:http://XXXXXX.info" would return some results.

[Scottie]

You haven't mentioned your logs. Your logs show 0 referrals from the big G?

[EddyGonzalez]

I've experienced similar effects but everytime my pages always appear back in the SERPs after a while.

By the way Google Sandbox does exist, it's an environment to build and test iGoogle gadgets.

[andruha]

You haven't mentioned your logs. Your logs show 0 referrals from the big G?

I'm not exactly sure what you mean by logs; but if you mean traffic from Google, then no. I stopped getting traffic from Google few days after I noticed it got deindexed. Google still crawls my site and other pages on the site still rank somewhere.

[Randy]

First thing I'd do is double check to make sure some entry in the index page's <meta robots= ... > section or your robots.txt isn't telling the spiders to stay away from that page.

Second thing I'd do is review any .htaccess or other redirect instructions to make sure one isn't trying to redirect from www.domain.com/index.ext to www.domain.com and is doing so in such a way that it's creating a loop, causing the page to never actually load for spiders. Most browsers will dump out of such endless loops eventually and will usually end up showing the page. Spiders don't. They'll dump out eventually, but will never get the page in question.