As my regular readers will know my best performing BANS sites have been sandboxed by Google. Sandboxing (as opposed to de-indexing) is when Google decides to dump most of your pages in the supplemental index and/or relegate all your best keywords to the millionth position in SERPS!
This is supposedly normal for Google after 2-3 months for a new site but there does seem to be something else going on here. A lot of sites were sandboxed around the end of May/beginning of June as Google apparently made changes to their algorithm. there’s a long discussion about it at Digital Point Forum
So as usual with Google we don’t know if this is the normal sandboxing, in which case the site should come back (sometime in the next 6 months!) or another slap at affiliate sites, in which case who knows if they will ever come back?
However the good news (at least for my sites) is that Yahoo and MSN traffic is steadily increasing so that it’s not such a disaster as it first appeared. For one site the traffic has increased from 5 visitors on June 5 (from a previous ~120) to 69 on June 16th. Still much lower than without Google but much better than it was. Yahoo and MSN do seem to take much longer to index the sites and for the keywords to rise in the SERP’s but as these are sites that are around 6 months old they are now well indexed. I must be doing something right with the SEO (even if Google no longer likes me!) as I’m on page #1 for a good number of keywords. .
Hopefully my sites will rise again in Google one day but in the meantime it’s not the disaster it first appeared!
Table of contents for Google Slapped
- Google Slapped!
- Update - Google Slapped
- Can you Live Without Google?
I think there is something very strange going on in Google’s datacenter. My website is also losing its position. Sometimes it is on page 1 then on page 2 and on page 3. There is no more peace left with Google
Nothing is impossible but it will be very tough to live without google.
Google is so fickle about things, yet no website could survive without them. I like em a lot but don’t get myself all caught up in the race for googles love. Good luck and hopefully you can get back in their good graces.
It would be hard to live without google.
I get maybe 15% of traffic from Yahoo but with MSN very little, sometimes not even 1 visitor from this search engine.
Google is still king
Hi Casemod I’m surprised I’m getting so many visitors from Yahoo and MSN. It’s only for the older (around 5 months) sites, newer sites have barely 1 or 2.
I can say that It’s hard without using google. I used google very often and I found it very helpful.
usually supplemental index is used by google when you publish duplicated text in your blog or site and not because of the sandbox.
i cant live without google. i almost use it everyday in my life and its very helpful!
Whats hard about living with Google is it’s lack of communication with it users.Like you say am I sandboxed forever? They need to let us in on there rules.
Agreed Dust Collecting - That is the big problem. You don’t know what you’ve done wrong so you don’t know how to fix it! I used to be no 1 for a keyword now I’m not in the top 1000! and an almost out-of-the-box BANS site without even a privacy policy and absolutely no content is still at no 1 for that same keyword. That’s what annoys me the most. I spent a lot of time adding unique content, privacy policy, about page etc and I’m nowhere to be found and that site is still no 1
I think it is quite impossible for any of us to live without google and its services…atleast I know I cannot…
Sandboxing is a very interesting concept indeed! It’s very obvious that we can’t live without google. But you never know on which basis does google bans the site. Google is so fickle about things, yet no website could survive without them- this statement is what google is all about!!!
Like it or not Google dominates the search engine market. Ranking high can really be the make or break of your business.
Honestly, I can’t live without it. I love google and it is very helpful to me.
no worry about sandbox. It won’t keep longer. keep digging and ping your blog from others to call it back
I think there are some special service of google without which it is tough to live.But not all of them.
Living without the BIG G is really hard. I disagree to delivery codes! Google is important to every one of us! It makes our job easy and fast.
Big G! FTW! i simply can’t live without it.
i could survive…. but id probably be out of a job
-Jake
Of course but please don’t remove the adsense
It would be hard without google. Google is really a big help to me.
love it or hate it, Google is the king. Better get used to it.
It’s really hard without google. I use google very often and it is very helpful.
I love/hate Google! Don’t know what other SE I would be using though…
yes sure i live forever
That is very weird situation because your rankings are increasing in Yahoo and MSN, Google sand boxed you. What will you do know? For one or two times my site vanished from SERPS but it returned back even with good rankings. I am confused to know.
I have seen people who change their domains and have left such domains. It can take several months to get out of this effect. Shockingly .info domain are suffering the most.
no way…Google is one of the site on which I individually rely on…i can’t live without it…
New Age : For you question, i believed your site is rather new in terms of domain age and this is why your website is jumping up and down in the SERPs. Be patient and your site will stablize.
Our traffic mainly comes from Google. However, we are still not over dependable on Google because we can always fall back on Yahoo too.
I really think people are underestimating Cuil as a search engine.
I really love Google. That’s all
The google sandbox is very real and very frustrating.All you can do is write good content, post on other sites to build back links, and wait it out as there is little to do!
Lets face it. It is quite hard to live without Googling your way to a vast of information. We are just too used to it.
Shockingly .info domain are suffering the most.
The sandbox effect is somewhat different from de-indexing. The sandbox effect is applicable to only newly registered websites. There is no linking of sandbox and de-indexing.
Honestly speaking I use Google everyday, I do work in Google maps. It was an important thing in everyday activities I do. I love to use it in every research that I will have to do.