285 replies to this topic

[greenlightsuk]

On a slightly different note, I keep reading about 1,000 + backlinks. But when you look at these top ranking sites, you can see that the vast majority of these links are INTERNAL.

If you want to compete for competitive phrases, get yourself a very big site.
Content is the answer. Content leads to links. Links lead to rankings.

Of course, this all requires bigger budgets (more resources).

[BrianR]

I think everyone is overlooking something... Google is Greed. Google is not God. Get used to it. If this is news to you, then I blame everyone who has not spoken out against Google over the last four years, starting with the stupid mass media, and continuing with the SEOs who aren't stupid but were making money by keeping quiet.

To quote myself from the same thread approx 5 hours earlier:

Google is well within its rights to alter its business model in order to make more profit by funnelling more siteowners towards AdWords. Our options are to adapt accordingly, or quit using Google.

Need I say more??

BrianR

[OldWelshGuy]

Why not make them both the right way and see what happens...since the sandbox is about the links not the site

But is it?

If I were running a search engine I would go down the route of the only sites that are likely to pick up thousands of links quickly are newsworthy or charity/ viral marketed sites. Such sites are unlikely to be optimised.

The reason for having identical links to different sites was to test if Google applies the sandbox equally to optimised, and un-optimised sites.

As I said, if it is applied to both sites, we know that the on page stuff is not a trip factor in the sandbox application. If it is applied to only the optimised site, then we will know that the sandbox filter is applied AFTER the on page stuff has been evaluated.

Having two identical sites with two sets of identical links would prove nothing IMO. Other than the sandbox exists (which I don't think many deny).

[anthonyparsons.com]

ghergich, I think you where looking for examples. Well, I have a recent client that was not ranking, sitting dormant as the site was new, though is now out of the box and ranking for some of the terms in the first ten results. This has only happened in the last month all without a PR update. BL updates have been done, this particular site is doing just fine for some after only one month of SEO. From nothing to something, without PR updates. My "Internet Directory" term which is sitting about page 3 has been moving up and down. That is highly competitive, so you can assess that if you wish. It moved up a few notches in the last BL update.

I haven't read the entirety of this post, I have work to do, though caught that particular ask off you. If you want sites or rankings that have moved in the past couple of months, I can give you some. All without a PR update, which is what you hinted at first I believe. Hell, go and study SEO Testing, it is only new. About three months old now, still no PR assigned though is ranking for SEO related terms all without a PR update. Not sure if these are the examples your looking for, but I think your wasting your time looking. Each to their own though. Give me a email if you want others.

[Jill]

Anthony, just curious as to why you think "internet directory" is a competitive phrase. It's only got a 72 predict at WordTracker, so it's not like a huge traffic generator.

I think ghergich is looking for examples from phrases that really are competitive...like REALLY competitive.

[projectphp]

...which is silly. Name any business in the world in which a new comer is the world leader within three months. Computers? Nope, took most players more than three months to be world leaders. The Auto industry? Don't think so.

Why should rankings be any different? Really, the less specific the search term, the more the leader in that "thing" shoudl rank highly. That isn't a sandbox, that is just plain sensible.

[Jill]

Exactly PHP! That's why I don't get why this whole thing is even an issue.

[ghergich]

Why wouldnt google want the information that is the most popular with other users? To me, thats a better question. The net is fast paste and google should be to, if information is shown to more popular who cares if it got there over night. They could do any number of small adjustments if they are worried about spam...which they reall are not...I see scrapped directories everywhere. For most information time makes is less valuable not more.

[thx1138]

Name any business in the world in which a new comer is the world leader within three months.

How about Google?

[Jill]

Why wouldnt google want the information that is the most popular with other users?

They would! But you're assuming that a site that suddenly has thousands of links means it's popular.

It doesn't. It means someone is trying to scam Google into thinking it's popular (most likely).

[ghergich]

all you have to do...is I say once last time...is count unique Ips and at the very least have a cut off for how much one site can give...say 10 link max or (i think just one vote) That woul nip that real fasta there are a few other things that are quick fixes as well. The fact is....IMO.....its nothing to do with spam or they would have alread implemnted this. Its hard to get 1000 real ppl from relevant sites...to link to you, but easy to get 2k links from even one site. This make the most logical sense if you were google.

[projectphp]

This make the most logical sense if you were google.

To achieve what? ghergich I STILL don't get it. So let me ask some specific questions, as we are just going round in circles;
1. Why should Google change the way it does things?
2. How do we get Google to make said changes, e.g. email campaign, blog smear campaign what?
3. What research actually needs doing? You seem 100% convinced this is real, so the issue moves from defining the problem to solving it. What practical things can one do to avoid this problem? I suggested a three month soft launch. Do you have any other suggestions? If the sandbox is indiscriminate, then why not just accept the fact and account for it in your business plan's SWOT?
4. Why does any of this matter? Do you really believe that if you become the sandbox expert that it will lead to more SEO business for you? Do you plan on launching several sites over the coming months and need to avoid this problem? Is tiem spent of this nissue time well spent?
5. Where to from here? 7 pages here + a few in the old thread, adn there is no direction. What next?

I hope you can answer some of those for me.

[chrishirst]

So you don't think that to implement some kind of link analysis on the incoming links of a newly discovered site with a lot of links would cause some kind of ooh! say "sandboxing" effect while the links were analysed and weighted!

Its hard to get 1000 real ppl from relevant sites...to link to you, but easy to get 2k links from even one site.

isn't this something along the lines of what everyone else was saying?



If you get 1000 unique links many of them may not get discovered within the first analysis period of the site therefore the alleged sandbox effect won't kick in. But 1000 links from the same site many of which, if not all may be crawled in this period. I say alleged because all I've seen is Google doing the same thing I've always seen. A new site can get rankings for non competitive phrases fairly quickly (4 - 6 weeks) with more competitive phrases taking longer (4/5 months or more) to start hitting even the low hundred positions. So I don't honestly believe this is any kind of new phenomena, just the furore about it is.

[anthonyparsons.com]

Anthony, just curious as to why you think "internet directory" is a competitive phrase. It's only got a 72 predict at WordTracker, so it's not like a huge traffic generator.

I think ghergich is looking for examples from phrases that really are competitive...like REALLY competitive.

Your looking at the MSN free trial their Jill.......Google gives a different response, and in actual fact, the term provides a near 1000 predicted daily and has an allintitle of nearly 1 million.....so I think it does make it slightly competitive.

[projectphp]

Back to solutions...

http://www.webmaster...25654-15-10.htm has a guy saying don't buy new domains. Instead, he recommends making an offer to a guy with a site in your niche that is not making any mullah. Even better, if they have a Yahoo and/or DMOZ listing, wam bam thank you mam, sandbox irrelevant.

Now how hard was that to come up with? That, the three month soft launch, and just noting it as a factor in the SWOT and this debate is about done IMHO.