I wanted to get this down on paper today because I have done a lot of tests to find out if there is a Sandbox or overoptimization filter when it comes to Google. I have done a bunch of tests and I finally have the results I want where I feel I can give a good opinion on what you can do. I want to help out those, who are especially new to the game.
I will start with the Sandbox, because from my prospective it is easy. I read all the time about the 3-6 month sandbox and that if you have a new site that it is impossible to rank high in the search engines regardless of your keywords popularity. I say this is crap. I just started promoting about 3 sites in November, they were all brand new and within a few weeks they were all on page one.
I can't say for sure that there is no Sandbox, even though I like to, because it is different from most of what you read, and I love to be different and cause a fuss. I will say however, that my three sites all got to the top with no problem so I either have really good luck, or I just can get around it. If there is a sandbox I missed it with three sites, so maybe it is just that my methods are better than everyone on the forums that talk about this horrible sandbox.
Now the overoptimization filter. Let's just be blunt, if your site is overoptimized in Google's eyes they will completley destroy your rankings. They will literally kill your site. Bye Bye good ranking, hello I am not in the index at all. Here is what I did. On week 2 of new website that was fantastic, I was on page one in the number five position. Best ranking ever in that short amount of time. Oh it was lovely. Then along came Mr. Overoptimization and he slit my throat. My site disappeared one day, and I don't mean from page one, I mean from the whole index. I wasn't even on page one when I searched for my domain name with the dot com.
My first thought was oh darn after all this luck of not having a site in the sandbox it got me. Well I guess that site is done for 6 months or more, so I kept link building but I did nothing to the site. One day it will just jump out of the sandbox to number one. I also decided that it was possible that all my sites may have this happen, and then what? I freaked, I was watching my rankings all the time, I would even go to the page my site was on and sit there for 5 minutes and refresh it just to make sure the site stayed. After about a month I decided I didn't care, I wasn't waiting 6 months, I would make some changes to the site, if that didn't work, new domain start over, because I had beat the sandbox with 2 other domains. I made one little change. I had my main keywords in an H1 tag at the top of my site, I changed it, I took my keywords out. A few days later when Google cached my site... I was back in the index. I wasn't sandboxed, afterall, I overoptimized the site.
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.
Until today really, I was a believer that no matter what, it made no difference what was on your site, if you had a good method of building links, which I do, you would rank well in Google. The reason is I didn't think Google could weigh much on what a webmaster could control. What I really learned is that changes to your page may not improve your rankings a great deal if you are already ranked good, but they sure can kill your page. You have to watch the density of your competitors and test out what modifying the density does for your rankings. If you overoptimize for any term, your site will get blasted there is no doubt. My major problem is to get a good ranking on Google I had to lower my density which was doing real good on MSN. I think though that I can handle MSN, because all my sites still rank better there than they do on Google.
So if you have been sitting around reading forums thinking your site is in the sandbox for 6 months, I want to tell you to change your strategy. Something you are doing is wrong. If you can seriously sit around for 6 to 12 months hoping to magically jump out of this sandbox to number one you are nuts. Make some changes to your site and see if anything happens, what do you have to lose? You aren't indexed, instead of doing the natural thing and adding all your keywords and stuffing them, see if you need to remove some. I get on page 2 in no more than 2 months with every site I launch, at least thus far, so I don't think there is anything to this sandbox.
Here is a tip from me. Don't link to anybody. What? That's right. I have several websites, they don't link to eachother and they don't link to anybody else. The reason? I know I can be punished if I link to someone that links to someone that sucks. Therefore instead of leaving my destiny in there hands, I just don't link to anybody including myself.
I will start with the Sandbox, because from my prospective it is easy. I read all the time about the 3-6 month sandbox and that if you have a new site that it is impossible to rank high in the search engines regardless of your keywords popularity. I say this is crap. I just started promoting about 3 sites in November, they were all brand new and within a few weeks they were all on page one.
I can't say for sure that there is no Sandbox, even though I like to, because it is different from most of what you read, and I love to be different and cause a fuss. I will say however, that my three sites all got to the top with no problem so I either have really good luck, or I just can get around it. If there is a sandbox I missed it with three sites, so maybe it is just that my methods are better than everyone on the forums that talk about this horrible sandbox.
Now the overoptimization filter. Let's just be blunt, if your site is overoptimized in Google's eyes they will completley destroy your rankings. They will literally kill your site. Bye Bye good ranking, hello I am not in the index at all. Here is what I did. On week 2 of new website that was fantastic, I was on page one in the number five position. Best ranking ever in that short amount of time. Oh it was lovely. Then along came Mr. Overoptimization and he slit my throat. My site disappeared one day, and I don't mean from page one, I mean from the whole index. I wasn't even on page one when I searched for my domain name with the dot com.
My first thought was oh darn after all this luck of not having a site in the sandbox it got me. Well I guess that site is done for 6 months or more, so I kept link building but I did nothing to the site. One day it will just jump out of the sandbox to number one. I also decided that it was possible that all my sites may have this happen, and then what? I freaked, I was watching my rankings all the time, I would even go to the page my site was on and sit there for 5 minutes and refresh it just to make sure the site stayed. After about a month I decided I didn't care, I wasn't waiting 6 months, I would make some changes to the site, if that didn't work, new domain start over, because I had beat the sandbox with 2 other domains. I made one little change. I had my main keywords in an H1 tag at the top of my site, I changed it, I took my keywords out. A few days later when Google cached my site... I was back in the index. I wasn't sandboxed, afterall, I overoptimized the site.
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.
Until today really, I was a believer that no matter what, it made no difference what was on your site, if you had a good method of building links, which I do, you would rank well in Google. The reason is I didn't think Google could weigh much on what a webmaster could control. What I really learned is that changes to your page may not improve your rankings a great deal if you are already ranked good, but they sure can kill your page. You have to watch the density of your competitors and test out what modifying the density does for your rankings. If you overoptimize for any term, your site will get blasted there is no doubt. My major problem is to get a good ranking on Google I had to lower my density which was doing real good on MSN. I think though that I can handle MSN, because all my sites still rank better there than they do on Google.
So if you have been sitting around reading forums thinking your site is in the sandbox for 6 months, I want to tell you to change your strategy. Something you are doing is wrong. If you can seriously sit around for 6 to 12 months hoping to magically jump out of this sandbox to number one you are nuts. Make some changes to your site and see if anything happens, what do you have to lose? You aren't indexed, instead of doing the natural thing and adding all your keywords and stuffing them, see if you need to remove some. I get on page 2 in no more than 2 months with every site I launch, at least thus far, so I don't think there is anything to this sandbox.
Here is a tip from me. Don't link to anybody. What? That's right. I have several websites, they don't link to eachother and they don't link to anybody else. The reason? I know I can be punished if I link to someone that links to someone that sucks. Therefore instead of leaving my destiny in there hands, I just don't link to anybody including myself.
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.
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