Have you been Sandboxed?

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It's quite common here at wealthy affiliate to hear new marketers and experienced ones ask why the page has been ranked?

In fact the other day IN live chat someone was asking why their article which was two days old had not been ranked. I thought they meant the whole site hadn't been ranked and I said it sounds as though you been sandboxed. The term "Google Sandbox" is in itself a blast from the past. It's a term I thought had died out five or six years ago, and began about 2005.

Google Sandbox

in the old days when Google decided it didn't like the content on a site, typically a very thin spammy site which was thrown up just to make money it used to sandbox it. This term meant Google had buried it so deep in sand and it would never surface again. Some did resurface after a manual review but very few, basically if you had a site that had been sandboxed the only thing to do was bury it! Google had frozen it deep in a nuclear bunker never to return. In general most people let those sites go because they were thrown up in the morning it wasn't worth fighting for.

Sandbox 2.

As we know Google is quite prosaic and it gives titles to everything. I didn't realise till last week that Google had given the term sandbox2 to a different phenomena!This new Google filter effectively penalises all new sites, not just those sites deemed to be using black hat techniques. It does so by filtering out Back links which will improve ranking.


What to Do If You Think You Have Been Sandboxed


Don't bray about it, just wait. What it means in effect is that you have to perhaps wait 30 days. Essentially it looks like although Google has seen you create a new website in a fairly non-competitive niche it is prepared to penalises your ranking for a while. This means Google is prepared to go to quite extraordinary lengths to stop anyone being able to rank very quickly and be able to earn money overnight.

What Google is requiring is a period of time to establish trust. Google has ranked in the past its fair share of what used to be called " churn and burn" Sites. So-called because they were designed to earn money quickly and when they were gone the gone. We all understand that this is not the wealthy affiliate way we are being taught to make a sustainable long-term income.

Don't stress about it and don't keep checking it. I know it's very hard not to when you start but you could write an extra article a week in the time that you waste checking to see that it is ranked. If you have done your keyword research in the way we are talking here then you know that eventually will rank so stop sweating!

It may be that a large amount of social shares may get round it all quality back links from day one but I doubt it. Just

Whilst this mayhem is going on and you are in the doldrums don't forget to carry on

  • create more content
  • remember that being consistent is very important so that Google knows when to check your site for more content. If you can blog a few times a week it will help but it is better to blog consistently from day one.
  • Acquire links from authoritative sites.
  • Try to gain some social shares

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Recent Comments

86

Been there, lost thousands, and that's all I have to say about that!

Amazingly I haven't! But I've known people who have lost tens of thousands so don't follow them follow wealthy affiliate's training

I lost a year on a 1k plus a month site due to incorrect niche assignment by Google, they lumped me in with the scam sites and I had to wait until the next update for them to correct it and re index me.. I was really tired of playing in the sand box, lol

Because of your sage advice and extensive knowledge, I have made it a point of not worrying about Google rank. At the beginning I started checking for my posts and would get so upset when I didn't see them listed. I read your blogs and some from others here who told us not to worry and to just continue writing good content, maintaining our sites and to keep on top of our training here. Yes I always look for your posts. Your positivity just flows from them and I believe every word you say. Thank you for super awesome post! Never heard of that expression....Sandboxed before. Love how much I learn here....blessing to you! Angela

Angelo, Blessings to you
That is such that is such a perfectly lovely thing to say I am so touched, that will definitely be in my gratitude journal tomorrow

Great post, Thanks

Thank you

Awesome post! Something I had no idea about but makes total sense!

I do understand the compulsion to check rank but time can be spent in so much better ways

Thanks Katherine,your are a big help to newbies. Marty

Thank you Marty that is a huge compliment! Thank you for taking the time to write it

I'd heard of the term sandboxed previously Catherine but wasn't exactly sure what it meant although I did have an idea.

Like you I thought it had disappeared because it hadn't surfaced for a while but this is interesting news about the so called sandbox 2.

Thanks for highlighting this Catherine, it's very reassuring for those who might be worried that Google was ignoring their site altogether to know that's not the case and to get on with creating consistently good content rather than fretting unnecessarily about not being ranked.

Mark

I have a funny feeling that Google doesn't know anything unless it wants to!

Thanks for the post. This was very informative and interesting and I'm glad I clicked the link to read it.

Thanks for this, I`ve made notes so I`ll remember :-).

Thanks for sharing! I need to remember these points.

You don't really need to remember the essence of the article only don't stress about ranking too early

I am curious what you would consider too early? I started my site at the beginning of April 2015

Very informative! I had no idea and this is so helpful to me - someone very new at the whole thing!

Just take your time, follow the lessons and learn from other people's mistakes. The training has evolved and is evolving to be the best that there is just take advantage of it

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