I just wanted to write something up to give some people some guidance. I get a lot of questions daily on the Sandbox and the Overoptimization filter on Google posed by my clients. I really wanted to address if they exist and how to fix any problems you may have. I have done some tests and finally have results that clear some things up for me.
The Sandbox is the easy one to address. There are two things I can say about it. The two things are that either it does not exist, or I have figured out the most magical formula to bypass it, but I don't know what it is. I read these forums where people say they are in the sandbox for six or even twelve months. I want those people to know that I feel something else is wrong with their site, I put up 3 new sites in November, and by January I was on the first page of Google. May I also add that these were brand new domains, and before being on page one they were on page two or three in just a few weeks.
I don't know if the Sandbox exists or not. It is like being 8 and questioning Santa Clause. I am not sure if it is there or not, but as long as I continue to believe then I am careful, or in the Santa Clause instance I get presents. Now I would love to come out and say it doesn't exist because I would probably be the only SEO that would make such a claim. All I know is that I either have a superior method to all the people that talk about the Sandbox, or people talking about it have other problems than just some sandbox.
Now as for the overoptimization filter, that does exist, and it will hammer you. I had a site that I started promoting and had excellent results. I was about number 5 on Google for my keywords, and then one day, I was gone. I dont mean gone like moved down, I mean gone. I didnt even rank number one for a search for my domain name including the dot com.
Right away I screamed Sandbox, read everything I could on it, and accepted that I would not be ranked for six months. I then pulled half of my hair out wondering if my other sites would drop like that too. As a matter of fact I obsessed over my rankings sometimes checking them hourly just to make sure they were still somewhere close to page one. You know Google rankings change a lot, I learned this during my little breakdown. After about a month of inaction because I assumed Sandbox I boldly made a move. At the top of my site in my H1 tags I had my keywords, I changed that tag, took the keywords out of it. A few days later, though not number one because I still am overoptimized, I was in position 100. Guess what? I wasn't sandboxed, I overoptimized.
Now I am not watching my rankings so close. I know that the problem with this particular site was that it was overoptimized not sandboxed as I had assumed. I moved this site back into the index by changing 4 words. I jumped over 16 million positions changing four words. I had to make another change though, because 100 position sucks, and I am still overoptimized. See in my forum reading I started beliving these yahoo's (people not search engine) that said my key word density should be between 3 and 7 percent. When I looked at my competition they are between 0 and 1%. I was over 4%. Now I have to work to keep reducing my density and as I do that I expect my rankings will continue to improve.
Up until this time I have been a firm believer in off page optimization, my theory has always been that there is no way they can weight on page optimization that much because it is so controllable by the webmaster. What I have learned in return is that on page cant help too incredibly much, but it can kill your site. Pay attention to the density of top sites and do your best to fit in those numbers. If you are over optimized kiss your income and your site good-bye on Google. The problem: MSN and Yahoo reward key word density so in increasing my rankings in Google I have partially damaged my MSN and Yahoo rankings, but I think it is worth it. I want to be on top of Google then worry about MSN and Yahoo.
So to those people in the forums stating that they have been sandboxed for 6 months, change your strategy. There is no way that Google is holding you back for 6 months but putting my sites on in 2 weeks. I am no different than you. I don't know Matt Cutts and I don't have ANY clue what the algorithim is. But I do get to page 2 sometimes within weeks of launching new sites. So if someone told me this, I would be going back to my site saying ok what am I doing wrong here.
Oh yeah also, don't contact me to link to your site. One of my major linking strategies is I do not exchange links, nor do I put a single outbound link on my site even to one of my own sites. Why? As far as I have seen anybody in the universe can link to my site and it doesn't hurt me, but I can get a penalty for linking to someones site. Therefore I don't link out to anybody. - 15254
The Sandbox is the easy one to address. There are two things I can say about it. The two things are that either it does not exist, or I have figured out the most magical formula to bypass it, but I don't know what it is. I read these forums where people say they are in the sandbox for six or even twelve months. I want those people to know that I feel something else is wrong with their site, I put up 3 new sites in November, and by January I was on the first page of Google. May I also add that these were brand new domains, and before being on page one they were on page two or three in just a few weeks.
I don't know if the Sandbox exists or not. It is like being 8 and questioning Santa Clause. I am not sure if it is there or not, but as long as I continue to believe then I am careful, or in the Santa Clause instance I get presents. Now I would love to come out and say it doesn't exist because I would probably be the only SEO that would make such a claim. All I know is that I either have a superior method to all the people that talk about the Sandbox, or people talking about it have other problems than just some sandbox.
Now as for the overoptimization filter, that does exist, and it will hammer you. I had a site that I started promoting and had excellent results. I was about number 5 on Google for my keywords, and then one day, I was gone. I dont mean gone like moved down, I mean gone. I didnt even rank number one for a search for my domain name including the dot com.
Right away I screamed Sandbox, read everything I could on it, and accepted that I would not be ranked for six months. I then pulled half of my hair out wondering if my other sites would drop like that too. As a matter of fact I obsessed over my rankings sometimes checking them hourly just to make sure they were still somewhere close to page one. You know Google rankings change a lot, I learned this during my little breakdown. After about a month of inaction because I assumed Sandbox I boldly made a move. At the top of my site in my H1 tags I had my keywords, I changed that tag, took the keywords out of it. A few days later, though not number one because I still am overoptimized, I was in position 100. Guess what? I wasn't sandboxed, I overoptimized.
Now I am not watching my rankings so close. I know that the problem with this particular site was that it was overoptimized not sandboxed as I had assumed. I moved this site back into the index by changing 4 words. I jumped over 16 million positions changing four words. I had to make another change though, because 100 position sucks, and I am still overoptimized. See in my forum reading I started beliving these yahoo's (people not search engine) that said my key word density should be between 3 and 7 percent. When I looked at my competition they are between 0 and 1%. I was over 4%. Now I have to work to keep reducing my density and as I do that I expect my rankings will continue to improve.
Up until this time I have been a firm believer in off page optimization, my theory has always been that there is no way they can weight on page optimization that much because it is so controllable by the webmaster. What I have learned in return is that on page cant help too incredibly much, but it can kill your site. Pay attention to the density of top sites and do your best to fit in those numbers. If you are over optimized kiss your income and your site good-bye on Google. The problem: MSN and Yahoo reward key word density so in increasing my rankings in Google I have partially damaged my MSN and Yahoo rankings, but I think it is worth it. I want to be on top of Google then worry about MSN and Yahoo.
So to those people in the forums stating that they have been sandboxed for 6 months, change your strategy. There is no way that Google is holding you back for 6 months but putting my sites on in 2 weeks. I am no different than you. I don't know Matt Cutts and I don't have ANY clue what the algorithim is. But I do get to page 2 sometimes within weeks of launching new sites. So if someone told me this, I would be going back to my site saying ok what am I doing wrong here.
Oh yeah also, don't contact me to link to your site. One of my major linking strategies is I do not exchange links, nor do I put a single outbound link on my site even to one of my own sites. Why? As far as I have seen anybody in the universe can link to my site and it doesn't hurt me, but I can get a penalty for linking to someones site. Therefore I don't link out to anybody. - 15254
About the Author:
Brent Sweet has several internet websites and google listings. His theory is number one on Google or no business success. So everyday his focus is optimization. Some of his businesses are Cheap Hotel Reservations, Legit Online Jobs, Bird house, and he offers Article Submissions.
