I figured it's time to clear the air about identifying the Google "sandbox" penalty and comparing/contrasting it to other effects that can "appear" sandboxy. Here are the steps to take to determine if you're in Google's sandbox:
- Do a site: command at Google (example)
If all of your site's pages have been crawled and none are in supplementary results or have the only the URL listed, you can proceed to step 2 (otherwise you'll need to look at other factors - dup content, possible spam penalties, devaluation, technical issues, etc.). See Todd's post about these issues.
_ - Check your rankings for several of the most targeted phrases you're going after at the following places:
- Yahoo!
- MSN
- AskJeeves (or Teoma)
- Google's allinanchor search (example)
- Google's allintext search (example)
- Google's allinurl search (example)
- Google with -asdf x 20 (example)
_ - Now compare the rankings from Google against all the rest. If you see, consistently, that you rank in the top 5-10 positions at all of those locations for a variety of targeted keywords, yet your rankings at Google for all of these is in positions 60-300, you're most likely "boxed."
_ - The List:
- You cannot be "boxed" for just one term, that's something different (I'm working on IDing it now).
- You cannot be "boxed" for only certain pages, also something different.
- You cannot be thrown into the "box" unless you change domains (301), start a new site, or change all your registry info (i.e. sell the site). At least, we've never seen an example of it (and believe me when I say I get to see a lot of sandboxed sites).
_ - Caveat - If you rank around position #7-12 at Yahoo! and MSN and in the Google "allin" searches, and rank in the 50s or 60s at Google, this still may not be sandbox - Google is CRAZY-SUPER-PICKY about the quality of your links, so before you jump to assumptions in a position like this, I'd seek to get yourself some very high quality links and make sure you're ranking top 2-3 at Yahoo!, MSN, and the allins before jumping to conclusions.
_ - AskJeeves is a great litmus test. Because Ask is so slow about updating rankings, recognizing links, etc. if you are rocking at Ask for competitive terms and stuck in 3 digits at Google, that's a very good sandbox indication (taken in concert with the other data). Ask is also very picky about which links it counts (for most segments), so you can be relatively proud of yourself if you can kick butt with the butler.
I hope this checklist is educational for those seeking to determine if they've been "boxed" - comments are open if you disagree or think there are other criteria to consider.
Thanks Rand! We're one step away from fully elaborating on your original post...
The main scenario I'm interested in is when we redirect what was formerly a mirrored domain into the branded domain. For instance, we had blue-widgets.com, blue-widg-ets.com and bluewidgets.com, ALL THREE of which point into the very same folder on our server. We no longer do silly things like this, but now we want to correct our mistakes of the past. Sooo the plan is to permanently redirect blue-widgets.com and blue-widg-ets.com into bluewidgets.com, as opposed to just sharing the same folder. So far the tests I've done show a vast improvement in our rankings, presumably because I'm consolidating our backlinks between all three domains, and/or because I'm eliminating duplicate content between the three domains.
Do you foresee any problem with this shift in the way we handle multiple domains for our old client's? I really don't think it will be a problem. In fact, tests so far show that it will help us a great deal. But your post up there made me stop and second guess for a moment, and I just wanted to get your view on this.
Thanks so much!
Everett
Our laptop repair website has been up for almost 3 months now and ranks well on certain terms, like dc power jack repair, and a few others. When it comes to 'laptop repair' when adding allintext: or allintitle: we rank on the first 2 pages of google. https://notebookmechanix.com is the website in question. Do you think we are "boxed"?
We got a site that was ranked well in google but i think got sandboxed a few days ago. Reason for sandboxing is because we launched recently launched 2 content heavy sites (+2-3000 pages) and there was a link in the footer of each page to our other site. So I think google saw this as spam, our fault or google's? I removed the links and i hope we leave the sanbox soon, it's a disaster. so point 3 isn't true I think.
Our site www.globalintegra.com is currently hosted with yahoo. Yahoo does not have or allow access to the .htaccess file. When I asked their tech support folks on a 301 redirect they seem to be clueless. Even if I ask how can I do a server side redirect I get an uneducated answer from their tech support. Would appreciate if there is anything that can be done for this situation. Appreciate your help.
Hi Randfish. My site it Ranked Number 1 in Yahoo and 2 in MSN for its main keyword but its allinanchor in Google is 725 and i am not ranked for the allintext and allinurl. My ranking for allinanchor was 95 about a month ago. Google first crawled my site in Oct. 2004. Can you give me some advice on what to do? I dont think i am in the sandbox but i dont know what to work on Thanks, ptdirect
I suspect that this forum is long since dead but I think my website is displaying all the characteristics of being in the sandbox, but it has been 11 months! Has anybody heard of being in the sandbox that long? It's a ski website.
Chris - I'm not sure about the quality of that article. The writing is very hard to follow.
I might recommend you take a peek here.
You mentioned that you can't get sandboxed for one page. So how can you tell if a page on your site has been sandboxed or penalized? I have a page that was about 8 or 9 months old and was ranking on the 1st page of Google for a number of my targeted keywords. All of a sudden it vanished for all of the keywords. It's not banned because when I type in the domain in the search box it shows up.I have continued to build links to it in hopes that it will reappear, but I get more and more concerned as the days tick by. So is there a way to know whether to just wait out the storm or file a reconsideration request? It shows up on the first page in Bing and Yahoo but not Ask Jeeves.Thank you for any help!
Thank you so much for the info. I learned new things today. Even though the orgional post is old, it is still relevant.
It still works, amazing.
I really love the article that you create and also help us in overcoming sandbook google, thank you very much for the tutorial
Hi there, and welcome to Moz! We'd like to ask that your comments and the links in them remain relevant to the author's discussion. The link to your blog wasn't relevant here, so I removed it.
Hope you enjoy the blog. =)
techmatters,
https://www.mattcutts.com/blog/seo-advice-url-canonicalization
Good questions, Everett.
I've seen sandbox happen primarily when an old domain was 301'd over to a new URL. For example, when the SEOmoz content (which used to exist and rank well at socengine.com/seo/ moved to seomoz.org). I have not seen it when a newer site was re-pointed via 301 to an old, well ranking site.
So, if you're 1999cameras.com and you buy up a few smaller startup camera shops from the past 6-12 months that are "boxed" (or aren't) and 301 them to 1999cameras.com, you should be fine. If, however, you 301 1999cameras.com to a new URL you bought - timelesscameras.com - you may very well find yourself boxed. One caveat - I have noticed as a trend that old, well ranking sites that 301 to new domains tend to spend less time "boxed" on avg. than sites that simply start fresh...
Rand, Could you clarify what you mean by getting sandboxed after doing a 301? What if you are redirecting an OLD domain into another OLD domain? For instance, if site A used to mirror site B, but now you just want to redirect it to avoid dup filters? In my experience so far, this has only helped rankings.
Do you mean if you redirect an OLD domain to a NEW domain? I thought that was the point of a 301 in the first place. Why would you be sandboxed for it?
I would think the way a 301 could get you into the sandbox is if you redirect a NEW domain into an OLD domain. For instance, if you have an older website and decide to go out and by some mom-n-pop domains that have been around since 1999, just to "suck the link juice" out of them.
Or is it all of the above?
Thanks in advance for clearing this up!
Everett
Also got a client who'se currently in the sandbox for the third time running in 2 years.
First sandboxing - campaign launch early 2004 (3 months); second - Bourbon (3 months); third - Jagger (currently in 3rd month).
Between sandboxing, targeted keywords are top 10.
Wow. Really? Linking to boxed sites can hurt a site? I haven't seen that before... And never seen a site get thrown back in except when 301'd or bought/sold. That would be a cool story to hear, Michael :)
Rand,
Thanks for bringing this. There's a lot of *suspected* sandbox behaviour that clearly isn't the sandbox. And I suspect the sandbox itself is often more than one filter (but no need to get into that here!).
I think that this is a good way to discern whether your site is on the beach or not. So many people associate any lack of rankings with being in the sandbox.
Any suggestions as to getting out?
I also have a site that has come out once, and without any change on my part, either on-site or links, went back in. A bit frusterating, as it has been ranking #1 in MSN and Yahoo for a long time now.
You cannot be thrown into the "box" unless you change domains (301), start a new site, or change all your registry info (i.e. sell the site).
You can get thrown back into the box once you've made it out. Had it happen twice, and was actually educational in showing it's not only a time filter. Happened last March-ish (Burbon I think). Just go out and trade links with lots of questionable quality sites (ie sites that are still in the box).
Please explain what is meant by "canonical version"
[Do you foresee any problem with this shift in the way we handle multiple domains for our old client's?]
Everett - I'd definitely 301 to a canonical version, and I doubt you have boxing to worry about.
An interesting read here, Does this article explain google sandbox theory,
what-causes-sandbox-filter-new