How To Play In Google's Sandbox

[Robert]

There is a new article from David Wallace up at Search Engine Guide:

How To Play In Google's Sandbox

Snippet:
Now that we have come to the conclusion that this sandbox, aging filter or whatever you want to call it, actually seems to exist, what can one do that has been affected by it?

[Big Bill]

Ive been thinking about this as well for clients with new domains. Do a page on my site that's built totally along my site's lines but optimised for their principal keyphrase complete with link to them. What's stopped me is fear of being caught in an old-time doorway page filter. Mind, with doorway pages being called Landing Pages for PPC purposes these days, perhaps I'm being over-cautious. Opinions?

BB

[Robert]

Welcome to the forum Bill!

Mind, with doorway pages being called Landing Pages for PPC purposes these days...

Just to prevent confusion for newer members, spiders should be blocked from crawling PPC landing pages so they don't end up suffering the problems doorway pages can.

[mitche7081]

That was a very informative article. I have a couple of questions that warrent some discussion:

My domain has been live for 2 years with no real optimization at all. About 3 months ago I switched hosting companies and I.P. address to a new shopping cart e-store. I am now aggressively doing onpage and off page optimization. Google has increased my SERPS tremendously, but still not as high as Yahoo, MSN, Lycos, etc who have ranked me on many terms in position 1-10.

Could I have been put in the sandbox when I switched IPs? I am also building many link partners and buying PR6 links, is this a bad idea as Google might view this as manipulating the sytem?

Any input would be greatly appreciated. My website is [check signature file] is anyone wants to draw their own conclussions.

Regards,
Gus

[David Wallace]

Originally Posted by Big Bill

Ive been thinking about this as well for clients with new domains. Do a page on my site that's built totally along my site's lines but optimised for their principal keyphrase complete with link to them. What's stopped me is fear of being caught in an old-time doorway page filter. Mind, with doorway pages being called Landing Pages for PPC purposes these days, perhaps I'm being over-cautious. Opinions?

I don't think there is really any such thing as a "doorway page filter". Doorway pages of old were usually orphaned pages designed to rank well for a particular keyword or phrase. When Google cam along and began to change the way search engines rank pages by assessing link popularity, those old doorway pages became useless. Then people starting linking them but with hidden links. Of course this was also looked upon as a spam technique.

All that being said, there is nothing wrong with creating a case study of your client that can include their targeted key phrases. Another thing we are experimenting with is listing them in one of our directories but also providing a "more info" link that would lead to a page with their profile complete with keywords related to their business. This would not be looked upon as a "doorway page" technique by any means and is a perfectly legitimate way to help market your clients.

[David Wallace]

Originally Posted by mitche7081

My domain has been live for 2 years with no real optimization at all. About 3 months ago I switched hosting companies and I.P. address to a new shopping cart e-store. I am now aggressively doing onpage and off page optimization. Google has increased my SERPS tremendously, but still not as high as Yahoo, MSN, Lycos, etc who have ranked me on many terms in position 1-10.

Could I have been put in the sandbox when I switched IPs? I am also building many link partners and buying PR6 links, is this a bad idea as Google might view this as manipulating the sytem?

Regarding your first question, you only have a Google PR of 2 and while PR isn't everything, you do need to get it up to a 4 or better and you will then see an improvement in your rankings. That can be done of course by getting good quality links to your site as well as building a good quality site in the first place. be careful who you link to however. If you are exchanging links, you want to make sure you are not linking to any "bad" sites. While having a "bad" site link to you can never hurt you, you can hurt yourself when you link to a "bad" site as you have complete control over who you link to.

On switching hosts and thinking you have been placed in the sandbox for it, that doesn't happen. Google's so-called aging filter has more to do with the age of the domain name and when it first went live on the Internet - not the time you have been with a host or on a particular IP address.

[mfurber]

Hi Guys

I found Roberts report very interesting but I would like to suggest some other possibilities to him and support it with some cursory evidence.

My opinion is that Google sandbox is indeed a separate database. And i believe I have a little evidence to support the argument. My own theory placed into simple terms is that when a new website is registered, or an existing website changes hands and the registration information is changed (most of us know that Google check the Who Is) the website is placed into a separate database, i.e. our friend sandbox. When a search query is submitted the default location for the search is towards the normal database, however if to few queries are returned the search is redirected to the sandbox database.

If it was the website that was penalised instead of the keywords then an aging filter would prevent all keywords on a site from being detected, as it would be the site that was sandboxed. However in all sites I have had that have been placed into sandbox within 4-6 weeks of registration I am achieving top 10 positions for low level uncompetitive keywords, and this method is true of every page.

As an experiment go to your sandboxed website and cut and paste 2 lines of body text into a browser (i.e. creating a uncompetitive keyword) or even your company name and you will find yourself within the top 2-3 pages, and in most cases number 1. If an aging filter was in place you would not achieve any positions at all.

You could argue that in some cases this is down to competitive terms being out of reach, however I have some sites that already have link popularity, saturation, stale content management and syndication of a level that would allow me to achieve top ten positions, and I have been around long enough to see these sites suddenly propelled into top positions when out of sandbox.

I look forward to your comments.

[friese]

I've seen this topic around alot lately. The article mentions that a site can get sandboxed if it gets a large amount of links in a short amount of time. How many links is too much?

[thejenn]

How many links is too much?

Well now if someone knew the answer to that, no one would get any more than that number of links, eh?

Not trying to be sarcastic here.

The reality is that people know that there's a line out there, but no one but Google knows exactly where that line is drawn. What you will usually hear is a vague "keep it natural" suggestion.

The reality is that we know Google is looking for unnatural linking patterns. That means that going out and buying sitewide links from the NY Times is likely going to trigger a warning signal to Google. Having 5,000 reciprocal links show up from 5,000 sites that have nothing to do with your topic is likely goign to signal a warning to Google. And so on and so forth...

That's why it's essential to build your links in as natural a way as possible. There's nothing wrong with seeking out links, but focus on building them in a way that mimics reality. Better yet...don't mimic reality, go with reality.

Apply for inclusion in directories.
Contact site owners on a one-by-one basis and give them reason to link to you
Put time and effort into building content that naturally attracts links

Basically, let your site grow by working hard and creating good content. Help out the links a little, sure...but focus on building good, quality links over time. It's when you start paying someone to build a zillion links to you all at once that you start looking at trouble...

[geeurbie]

Maybe, I am missing something here, But I do not believe in this sandbox theory.

I manage two sites currently and have managed three. All these sites are relatively new (under a year) and they have never been in a sandbox. They all started out with first page results from the very first week and have stayed there.

Perhaps, it is because I have effectively used the page title, meta keyword, meta description, keywords, and H1/H2... They also include quality content and a blog! I really do not know for sure... What I do know is this my site, Your Fresh Start is a, .us, and is only 4 months old... It currently has a PR of 4 and it currently holds down 21 #1 positions for keyword searches across Yahoo, MSN, and Yahoo. My new site, Tucson SEO Solutions, is a com, and is in a competitive field, SEO, and it holds down several #1 positions... And it is about a month old...

The key here for me is that I localized my keywords. Since I am in Tucson, everything includes Tucson... As in Tucson house cleaning serice and Tucson SEO Solutions... So it is true I do not believe in a Google sandbox...