Google Sandboxing
-
I have a new site with a new domain that ranked well the 1st week or so after it was indexed then it totally dropped off the SERP.
My question is, does Google Sandboxing affect new sites on new domains that don't have any incoming links? The site dropped off before I began link building - from what I've read unnatural link build is often the cause. Can you still be sandboxed without any link building?
If this is the case, are there things I can do to get out of the sandbox?
Thanks folks,
Jason
-
I would just give it a little time, and see what happens when you get a few links.
-
Thanks so much for the quick response EGOL. I'm quite sure this isn't a duplication content issue, it is a website for dental practice and all of the content is fresh and unique to them.
We're in planning stage of the link building process, this is tops on our list.
I was surprised to see the site drop completely out of the SERP for searches such as the practice name. When it does rank it is pages deep and a it is an internal page that is listed (as opposed to the index page).
In Yahoo and Bing the index page ranks within the top 5 results for the company name. In Google the index page ranked well for the 1st couple of weeks, now it doesn't rank at all except for really long tailed searches. I've created similar sites with strong results for similarly competitive keywords. But this is the 1st time I have experienced this and the only real difference was this site had a brand new domain and no existing site before.
-
First... new sites often go in and out of the SERPs for a few days to a couple of weeks. Hang in there you might be fine.
Second.. if you have very few links and especially if they are weak links you might need more power to stay in the SERPs.
Finally... is anyone republishing your feed or scraping your content? Search for a unique sentence or two from your site between quotation marks. A few years ago a powerful news site was republishing my feed and BAM.. my blog fell out of the SERPs like a ton of bricks. Almost completely gone but my content on that news site was up in the SERPs. I wrote to them and asked them to remove my feed and they were good guys about it. A couple weeks later I was back in the SERPs at full strength. I honestly believe that what people call "the sandbox" is often a duplicate content problem caused by feed republishing or scraper sites.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
What's going on with google index - javascript and google bot
Hi all, Weird issue with one of my websites. The website URL: http://www.athletictrainers.myindustrytracker.com/ Let's take 2 diffrenet article pages from this website: 1st: http://www.athletictrainers.myindustrytracker.com/en/article/71232/ As you can see the page is indexed correctly on google: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:dfbzhHkl5K4J:www.athletictrainers.myindustrytracker.com/en/article/71232/10-minute-core-and-cardio&hl=en&strip=1 (that the "text only" version, indexed on May 19th) 2nd: http://www.athletictrainers.myindustrytracker.com/en/article/69811 As you can see the page isn't indexed correctly on google: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:KeU6-oViFkgJ:www.athletictrainers.myindustrytracker.com/en/article/69811&hl=en&strip=1 (that the "text only" version, indexed on May 21th) They both have the same code, and about the dates, there are pages that indexed before the 19th and they also problematic. Google can't read the content, he can read it when he wants to. Can you think what is the problem with that? I know that google can read JS and crawl our pages correctly, but it happens only with few pages and not all of them (as you can see above).
Technical SEO | | cobano0 -
Closed Address Google Local
While there are some older conversations pertaining to Google Local/Plus, I am not sure if issue is a bit different. The company I work for at one time had two locations. Both are brick & mortar, physical locations. The factory closed several years ago. To my surprise, the old location is coming up in a few Google searches as a Google Plus page (actually just located it toward the end of last week.) It is currently unclaimed. There are a handful of citations out on the web as well. To remove the factory listing (the one we don't want, which I am pretty sure is confusing Google), what is the best approach? Remove/update citations for the old listing? And then claim it and suspend it using our Google Places account? It took a while to claim the listing we actually want and I just want to be sure we handle removing the old one correctly. Any insight or advice is appreciated!
Technical SEO | | SEOSponge0 -
Hit by Google
My site - www.northernlightsiceland.com - has been hit by google and Im not sure why. The traffic dropped 75% last 24 hours and all the most important keywords have dropped significantly in the SERP. The only issue I can think of are the subpages for the northern lights forecasting I did every day e.g. http://www.northernlightsiceland.com/northern-lights-forecast-iceland-3-oct-2012/ I have been simply doing a copy/paste for 1 month the same subpage, but only changing the top part (Summary) for each day. Could this be the reason why Im penalized? I have now simply taken them all down minus the last 3 days (that are relevant). What can I do to get up on my feet again? This is mission critical for me as you can imagine. Im wondering if it got hit by this EMD update on 28 sept that was focusing on exact match domains http://www.webmasterworld.com/google/4501349-1-30.htm
Technical SEO | | rrrobertsson0 -
Influencing Google Instant Preview
Hello there! I have been looking at how our articles are shown in Google Instant Previews. While the description in the SERPs picks up the first paragraph from the article from the main table/div body, the Instant Preview highlights a text ad in the top right of the side column. According to Google https://sites.google.com/site/webmasterhelpforum/en/faq-instant-previews Q: How can I influence the text highlighted in the preview image?
Technical SEO | | CleverPhD
A: The highlighted text is automatically chosen based on the user's search query. Only text that is visible on the page can be selected for highlighting. Google is highlighting the same block of text from an ad space over and over again. "Download our Free Guide ...." vs the first paragraph in the article. Any ideas folks?0 -
Removing irrelevant items from Google News?
A client wants to know if it's possible to get Google to remove stories from Google News feeds if those stories have nothing to do with the client? Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.
Technical SEO | | JamesAMartin0 -
Pages not indexed by Google
We recently deleted all the nofollow values on our website. (2 weeks ago) The number of pages indexed by google is the same as before? Do you have explanations for this? website : www.probikeshop.fr
Technical SEO | | Probikeshop0 -
How to ask for forgiveness from the Google God?
Ok so maybe not ask for "forgiveness" because I am not sure what we did to get penalized. I believe our site is being penalized 1. most of our usual keywords are not ranked in their usual placements in the search results. 2. some of our keywords are listing the wrong pages as search results and 3. our search results are landing on pages 8 or 9 on Google (not 2 or 3 as before). This is an ecommerce site. How do we figure out what trigger the penalty (if at all) and how do we fix it so that we can get our ranking back (is that even possible)? Please advise - much help is needed!
Technical SEO | | mof3kz0 -
Google Website Optimizer
So if you are AB testing two pages: index.html and indexB.html Shouldn't I nofollow indexB.html? It has all the same content, just a different design.
Technical SEO | | tylerfraser0