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.
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 am not sure I dont believe the Sandbox exists, however I know for a fact that there are methods to getting around it, even though I cant say definitively what they are. I mean how could 3 of my sites jump to page one if there was a sandbox within a month or two? If there is truly a sandbox filter, or a method that gets you put in it, I missed out on it with three sites, so maybe my methods are just superior to everyone out there who says there is a 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.
I thought maybe they were proving to me there was a sandbox. Then I was in a state of panic for months. What about these other sites that ranked so good, would they drop too? I let the site sit for about a month and a half without changing anything, continued promoting it, but did no other optimization just to see if I popped out of the sandbox. No results. So about a week ago, I changed one thing. The first thing Googlebot would see is my H1 tag that was my main keywords, I changed that H1 tag to something completely different that does not contain the keywords.
The results of this test took a huge weight off my shoulders. I moved right up from not being indexed to position 100 by changing 4 words. Now I have made another change because I still want to reduce my keyword density. I found that my personal keyword density was about 4%. This came from all my forum reading. These Joe Blows, who probably don't even have a ranking for anything saying it should be between 3 and 7%. When I looked at the top 10 sites for my keyword, none of them, for the phrase, even have a density of 1%. I have a lot of work to do, but I am doing it one step at a time so I can see what works.
Before today if someone asked me I would have said on page optimization is crap, and nobody needs to do it. I change this statement now and say onpage optimization will not get you good rankings, but it will absolutley blast your site if you do too much of it. See I didn't think that Google would weight the factors within my control so much, when it comes to improving rankings, they may not, but boy they will just delete you right out if you are over optimized. The only problem I have is I have now dropped in my rankings on MSN because they like high densitys. Thats ok though, I want a good position on Google, I will get MSN later.
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.
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. - 17944
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 am not sure I dont believe the Sandbox exists, however I know for a fact that there are methods to getting around it, even though I cant say definitively what they are. I mean how could 3 of my sites jump to page one if there was a sandbox within a month or two? If there is truly a sandbox filter, or a method that gets you put in it, I missed out on it with three sites, so maybe my methods are just superior to everyone out there who says there is a 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.
I thought maybe they were proving to me there was a sandbox. Then I was in a state of panic for months. What about these other sites that ranked so good, would they drop too? I let the site sit for about a month and a half without changing anything, continued promoting it, but did no other optimization just to see if I popped out of the sandbox. No results. So about a week ago, I changed one thing. The first thing Googlebot would see is my H1 tag that was my main keywords, I changed that H1 tag to something completely different that does not contain the keywords.
The results of this test took a huge weight off my shoulders. I moved right up from not being indexed to position 100 by changing 4 words. Now I have made another change because I still want to reduce my keyword density. I found that my personal keyword density was about 4%. This came from all my forum reading. These Joe Blows, who probably don't even have a ranking for anything saying it should be between 3 and 7%. When I looked at the top 10 sites for my keyword, none of them, for the phrase, even have a density of 1%. I have a lot of work to do, but I am doing it one step at a time so I can see what works.
Before today if someone asked me I would have said on page optimization is crap, and nobody needs to do it. I change this statement now and say onpage optimization will not get you good rankings, but it will absolutley blast your site if you do too much of it. See I didn't think that Google would weight the factors within my control so much, when it comes to improving rankings, they may not, but boy they will just delete you right out if you are over optimized. The only problem I have is I have now dropped in my rankings on MSN because they like high densitys. Thats ok though, I want a good position on Google, I will get MSN later.
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.
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. - 17944
About the Author:
Brent Sweet has several online businesses. He feels the basis of his business to rank number one. That means each day for each business his focus is SEO. His businesses offer things like Cheapest Hotels, Legitimate Online Jobs, Birdhouses, and he offers Article Submission.
