10 years old domain NOT INDEXED

Do you feel domain age really matter ? I mean a site with good history and which was live for 20 years is a different thing. But a domain were testing was done 20 years ago is useless now.
 
Yep, the sandbox has very little to do with passing juice.

And it makes sense.. If Google changed the algorithm so that juice only passed between sites that are ranking easily for a topic, then it would severely limit links.

It would also create a bit of a chicken and egg, since what comes first? Sites that pass juice, or sites that rank? If there are no ranking sites, then no sites can pass juice, so how does the whole system bootstrap? They would need metrics outside of links/PR to first decide who ranks, and then after they rank, they what, switch to PR/links?

The only place I do think traffic makes sense for pbns is in terms of actual traffic through the backlinks which they track through chrome.

They're probably tracking clicks through links in chrome and using that as a weighting factor for links, which is why auction domains with links from bigger sites work well, since those links are going to have some clicks through chrome compared with spammy links from low quality sites which are essentially dead links.
What are your thoughts on automated services that mimic human behavior, such as increasing SERPs CTR, clicking on backlinks, or anything else that could be a factor?

I feel this could have some kind of effect to already ranking websites, but no clue as Google has literally killed 80% of search results and only showing top websites(friends) on almost every query.
 
What are your thoughts on automated services that mimic human behavior, such as increasing SERPs CTR, clicking on backlinks, or anything else that could be a factor?

I feel this could have some kind of effect to already ranking websites, but no clue as Google has literally killed 80% of search results and only showing top websites(friends) on almost every query.

Too expensive. Hard to do right. Easy to fuck up your site permanently and when you stop, you lose rankings.

Much better to focus on actually increasing engagement for real.

Build a relevant directory links

This post warrants the creation of a new meme under the like button..

XFutyknECt2yvYBt.jpg
 
Last edited:
You probably bought a trash old domain without any past relevance
 
Yeah the age doesn't matter. A 20 year old domain that's not ranked for anything in 15 years is still going to be in the sandbox when you start using it again.

It'll work fine as a pbn, as ranking and linking are 2 completely separate things. There isn't a "sandbox" for passing link juice.

Even if you have a domain that's been ranking for the past 5 years for gardening and you try to start putting gaming content on it, it's not going to rank well.

The more recent the domain has had rankings in a given niche, the easier it is to build it out again and start ranking in that niche.

There does seem to be a difference with REALLY powerful domains, and they will often rank quicker even in new niches. By really powerful though I'm talking about $5k+ domains.

But even then, they don't always.

Statistically, and I'm talking from direct experience, the quickest way to rank a site is a domain that's had rankings(doesn't have to be huge. Can be a few hundred keywords and 50-100 traffic on ahrefs) within the past 6 months and you re-build the pages either with the old content, or new content and 301 page by page where it's most relevant, and add more, fresh content in that same niche, and keep expanding from there.

This works almost every time and very quickly.

Next is 1 year. This works about 70% of the time. The other 30% you just have to wait longer to start ranking.

Then 2 years, which is about 50/50.

Over 2 years, if the DR is under 40(And by DR I mean REAL DR, ie, the DR is 40+ from good links, not 40+ from garbage. This is a very important distinction. I judge domains by links, but the DR gives you an idea of what the links should look like, if the DR is from legit links. Make sense?)

For DR over 40 and 2 to 3 years, it's about a 60-70% chance to rank fairly easily.

3-5 years you need about a DR 50+ to get good numbers.

2 years with no traffic and a DR 20, will often fail to rank. It will rank eventaully, but it could take 6 months to a year to build up. It gets sandboxed..

The sandbox is obviously related to link quality. It must be otherwise a DR 60 with no traffic in 5 years would be the same as a DR 20 with no traffic in 5 years, but they aren't. This comes from the direct experience of rebuilding close to 1000 domains now, with everything from DR 10's to DR 75's, traffic within 1 month to no traffic for 10 years.

If you want to build a money site:-

Traffic within 6 months: Any DR. Any links. You can pretty much buy purely based on the traffic.
Traffic within a year: DR 25+ - Could be 20, could be 30. You decide. 20, you'll find more, 30, you'll get more to rank faster.
Traffic 1-2 years: DR 40+
Traffic 2-3 years: DR 50+
Traffic 3-5 years: DR 60+

Traffic over 5 years.. I wouldn't bother.

You can always tell when someone speaks from experience and I appreciate such a in-depth answer. Since all domains are sandboxed when they're new does that mean you can power through it with a lot of content and some HQ links?

If a domain is 6 months old ranking in the 50s for keywords is it fine to add links?
 
You can always tell when someone speaks from experience and I appreciate such a in-depth answer. Since all domains are sandboxed when they're new does that mean you can power through it with a lot of content and some HQ links?

If a domain is 6 months old ranking in the 50s for keywords is it fine to add links?

You can always add links to any domain, regardless of age. Just make sure pages are indexed.

It's just a waste to go too aggressive with link building on a site that's too young, but you should always be link building as soon as everything is indexed.

The sandbox is something I never really had too much of a strong belief in. It does seem to exist as was technically "confirmed" by the Google leak, but based on my experience it doesn't act like a "sandbox".

Ie, it's not like an on/off switch where one minute you rank, the next you don't. I just don't really see this.

What I see more is if a site is setup well and targeting lower competition/longer tail keywords it will rank fine for them and get page 2's, 3's, 4's and 5's fairly early. If good link building is done it'll move up pretty fast.

People think there's this hardcore sandbox because they can't create a 5 page site targeting "payday loans" and just rank in 24 hours ;-)

I also see more of a sliding scale which is why I don't really like the term "sandbox".

If a brand new site is ranking for nothing, then something is wrong. This isn't a sandbox.

The way I've always seen the sandbox is more just a site not having enough topical authority and/or site authority.

Even an older site that tries to post articles in totally new niches won't do that well. It will have a sandbox like effect until it establishes topical authority in that niche.

Exceptions to this are the monster authority sites that just rank for anything, BUT, is it really an exception, or do they just have so much content and links from so many different niches that they have sufficient topical authority across multiple niches? It's hard to say.. When you see sponsored posts ranking for high comp terms and you look at how many articles the authority site has in that niche, you'll often see 100's of them.

And besides, a lot of "analysis" from the leak is pure hype.

People love to come up with stuff like "google lied, the sandbox exists"..

There is a vague mention of 'sandbox' in the api leak, but this doesn't mean they have some sandbox flag for all new sites. It could be used in multiple ways and we have no idea how.

My belief really is that there isn't a specific sandbox flag for new sites when it comes to ranking, but rather what people perceive as a sandbox is just when a site has a lack of power/topical authority.

COUNTLESS AI sites in 2021-2023 were able to go from 0 to 100's of thousands of keywords ranking in the space of a month.

How is that possible if there's a pure sandbox?

It's harder to do now, but not because of a sandbox, because they've put other measures in place to make it harder for AI sites to rank fast(Mostly it's engagement. AI sites still rank fast for short periods, but if they lack engagement they drop fast)

The mentions of the sandbox in the api leak are more likely related to the spam detection algorithms. Probably related to new sites passing link juice so people can't just create 1000's of new sites and get a ton of free link juice. That makes more sense too.

What's the actual purpose of a sandbox flag for ranking? It's pointless. They don't really need it. The algorithm already handles everything else. If a brand new site were to get dozens of links from DR 90+ sites and publish 300 quality articles in 1 niche that will have good engagement then it will rank fast. If there was a sandbox flag, this wouldn't happen. In fact, there would never have even been AI sites dominating the web in the first place. They would have been sandboxed for 6-12 months.

I still will use the phrase 'sandbox', but when I use it I'm just referring to the natural time it takes for a site to build up the adequate power/topical authority to compete with more established sites.

It's like saying someone who starts jiujitsu is 'sandboxed'. They aren't. They just don't have the components/attributes that a more experienced practitioner has.
 
Because indexed searches are performed using the search engine, they support features such as root word search, fuzzy search, search context hits, and relevance ranking. Non-indexed searches support case and accent sensitivity settings, and require the use of wildcards for non-exact matches.
 
i have 24 years old domain(1 year older than me lol) with no backlinks still it will not help me at all for ranking only backlinks matter these days.
Yes backlinks play a major role in ranking your website. Also content is king!
 
Back
Top