32 replies to this topic

[Scottie]

If you're about to launch a brand new site, would it get sandboxed if it ALREADY contained heaps of incoming links?

ie. Add as many incoming links as you can BEFORE submitting a new site?

Hi Kangaroo!

Why would you even submit a site at all? Search engines find pages through following links- Google's even admitted their submit page doesn't work half the time. They simply have it there to give webmaster's "something" to do so they feel better, IMO.

Try to find that submit page in their normal navigation... there's a reason they make it hard to find.

So, if you have tons of links to a new site, it already is submitted. Entering it's URL at the submission page really doesn't do anything additional.

You do need to submit to directories- once. You do not need to submit to a major crawling search engine.

[kangaroo]

Thanks Scottie.

BTW... I like your site. There's an error at the top and bottom of the homepage though. You may want to check it.

[Brian Turner]

Yes. Sandbox - or something at least - seems to be delaying the impact of anchor text on Google.

It rears its head particularly when you're heavily involved in link-building - and by that I don't mean the handfuls you might get from link exchanges/directory submissions in a month - but instead by working with raw force of numbers - 100s, 1000s, of links per day, such as from sitewide advertising.


In the manner of Old Welsh Guy:

And hear ye, that we of Google commandeth that all links by force of number, shall be requireth of the process of grandfathering. And while those links be grandfathereth, they are Sandboxed, until such time as the grandfathering be completed. And, lo! the grandfathering taketh around one dozen or more weeks to impacteth.

.

[OldWelshGuy]

One dozen or more weeks? Is that like 3 moon phases? Forgive me I am Welsh and have yet to move with this gregorian new fangled notion stuff.

[Brian Turner]

Heh, now let's try to convert "3 moons phases":

3 winter PR updates
1 summer PR update

2003 all over again.

[Neil F]

My novice experience tells me that my sight is being held back on google for some reason. It has been up for 4 months, I have been selling for 3 months...

I am in a very competitive field, up against the likes of landsend...but I score very well in yahoo and I am no where in google.

My homepage has a PR of 5 and I can't get anywhere in google....

I hear about this 3 month thing, but it has to be longer than that in some cases, I hope that it is not too long.

They definitely get you with that google adwords program, because it is the only way they will let a new site play!!!

[OldWelshGuy]

I think I should put something up here with regard the 'sandbox' thing. It is generally agreed that it is NOT sites that get sandboxed, it is links, and not the whole element of links, rather it is split.

There are two parts of the Google algo that relate to a link.
1) The page rank element.
2) The anchor text element.

It is not the page rank element that is sandboxed, it is the second element, the anchor text element. And, as we know that page rank is now hardly anything more than a toy, or a tie break for duplicate content, we can assume that Google is waging war on throw away domains, and anchor text abuse (at least short term).

It seems that Google feel any site that has a lot of links with a lot of the same anchor text within those links is trying it on. It then applies the sand box thing to those links only. NOT all links, and not the whole site. I have been playing with this on one of my own sites that ranks #1 for loads of phrases, and I have been working on traditional link building for a couple of different phrases as the market moved.

I though this would be an ideal opportunity to test out the sandbox theory on. I went to a couple of sites I own, and added a load of backlinks cross site with the same 5 word anchor text.

Sure enough, within a couple of days the site shot into the top 100, then 80, then 60, then GONE, right out, no where! (I guess this is the point when the filter was applied) The other phrases that are being built the traditional single link across many sites however have continued to climb, completely unaffected by the sandbox effect. Three of the 8 new phrases are now top 10, so it is clear that the sandbox filter is not applied to sites, but applied to link abuse (or assumed link abuse), and only then on the anchor text portion, with the PR portion being allowed to transfer.

I am still not happy with the phrase 'the site is in the sandbox' and I am sure Brian will be able to add to my stuff here, as he deals way more in the link side of things than I do, especially bulk linking with optimised anchor content.

OWG

[amabaie]

OWG, so you are a believer after all.

I agree 100% with your analysis, which is why an established site can buy banner or text ads across an antire forum and benefit, while a new site that places one of its first links in an SSI on another domain is commiting hare kara (Is that the correct term?)

[OldWelshGuy]

David I never said I wasn't a beleiver, just that it was not how people are painting it Sites sand boxed? nope dampening effect on over zealous optimised linking? Probably. Google doing something to combat the latest link mongering? Definitiely!

What will be next I wonder?

[Jill]

I think it's awesome that Google's perhaps figured out a way to combat that sort of link mongering.

You go, Google!

[OldWelshGuy]

What it effectively does is slow down the cycle of throw away domains. As we know many of the scummiest lot just blitz a domain with every kind of spam they can, then when it is dropped, they just move onto the next etc etc. Now it means that they have a clear 12 weeks minimum before they are going to see #1 positions return, as simply switching the 200,000 (or whatever amount) of anchor text links to the new domain simply puts those links in limbo.

Google is up to something with this filtering thing, and fair play to them as well, it is ridiculous that simply by setting up a php directory script and a scraper, that you can have 100,000 back links within a matter of days. I wonder what will be the next big thing? Let's see what MSN bring out.

[April]

it smells like cat pee in here can someone help me

my sister has cats and they keep them mostly inside - i hate visiting my sister's place the cat pooh sand box makes me puke

[April]

If you're about to launch a brand new site, would it get sandboxed if it ALREADY contained heaps of incoming links?

ie. Add as many incoming links as you can BEFORE submitting a new site?

Hi Kangaroo!

Why would you even submit a site at all? Search engines find pages through following links- Google's even admitted their submit page doesn't work half the time. They simply have it there to give webmaster's "something" to do so they feel better, IMO.

Try to find that submit page in their normal navigation... there's a reason they make it hard to find.

So, if you have tons of links to a new site, it already is submitted. Entering it's URL at the submission page really doesn't do anything additional.

You do need to submit to directories- once. You do not need to submit to a major crawling search engine.

i was wondering about that! i hate submitting my sites because all they really want is to steal my email so they can sell it on to their spam masters.

[nuttakorn]

How can we check the status of website which still in the sandbox or not? I don't know why my ranking has not been appeared in google why top 3 in Yahoo. I have pagerank 6 and got in Dmoz directory. My site isn't new website and the link is not new link at all.

[Jill]

Nuttakorn, it is my understanding from reading this thread and others on the subject, that the "sandbox" is only something that happens to a site if it obtains hundreds of links pointing to it, very quickly.

If you haven't done that, then you have nothing to worry about, regarding the sandbox.

And if you did do this, then it sounds like over time, sites get out of the sandbox, once the links are determined to be legitimate ones.