Experiments With Sandbox, and Strange Results - help?

[mickyfu]

Interesting discussion here. Conflicting data as well. Plan on doing my own experiment on this matter.

Micky, how do you address the OP's information here. It appears you have data that suggests that there is no sandbox. How do you deal with with this contradictory data that indicates a sandbox? :

[/COLOR]

I will state it again then leave it. It is getting rather pointless now. Not being able to rank your website, does not equal sandbox. It equals poor SEO.

It is funny how people who have been unable to rank their websites have made their own version of the sandbox up, that suits what they see. ie a 30 day one, a six month one, one that only allows you to get up to page two and no further, one that only allows you to get to page four and no further, one that only applies to new domains. Yes I have heard them all and more.

Did not really bother to read what you quoted, here you go.

Believe it or not, PBN links are not the be all and end all of SEO, yes it's true.

Try site structure, and on page SEO just for a start.

What you quoted OP states that he knows his links are stronger than the whole of page one. Fact or just OP's oppinion?

 

[anthony1617]

I will state it again then leave it. It is getting rather pointless now. Not being able to rank your website, does not equal sandbox. It equals poor SEO.

It is funny how people who have been unable to rank their websites have made their own version of the sandbox up, that suits what they see. ie a 30 day one, a six month one, one that only allows you to get up to page two and no further, one that only allows you to get to page four and no further, one that only applies to new domains. Yes I have heard them all and more.

Did not really bother to read what you quoted, here you go.

Believe it or not, PBN links are not the be all and end all of SEO, yes it's true.

Try site structure, and on page SEO just for a start.

What you quoted OP states that he knows his links are stronger than the whole of page one. Fact or just OP's oppinion?

It's fact, because the site ranking first for the keyword literally has 20 links total in Majestic, and I have a PBN of 15 sites, all of which have TF and CF 15+, while many of his links transfer no juice whatsoever.

I didn't send all 15 links, of course. But after a few, being nowhere in the top 200 is a bit suspicious.

 

[mickyfu]

It's fact, because the site ranking first for the keyword literally has 20 links total in Majestic, and I have a PBN of 15 sites, all of which have TF and CF 15+, while many of his links transfer no juice whatsoever.

I didn't send all 15 links, of course. But after a few, being nowhere in the top 200 is a bit suspicious.

I take it you have no clue that Majestic, Ahrefs and so on are the most popular bots blocked?

Yet even the very basics of SEO you seem oblivious to, but you will tell others about the fictional Sandbox.

Oh and then there is the fact that Majestic is complete shit for checking backlinks.

One of my sites with about 2000 back links, Majestic will only pick up 200 if that.

 

[cloudyseo]

I also believe there is a sandbox period for new websites. Why I think that? Because I ranked websites in the past and I am ranking new websites today. However, so far I couldn't figure out a clear pattern of how this sandbox period works because the time seems to vary for different niches. I've been using a strategy that should mimic (according to my understandings of SEO) a natural link building process and it works well for most of the websites while for some it still takes 2-3 months to start breaking Top 100 for medium-high competition keywords.

But anyway, I don't mind this waiting period at all. It actually gives me enough time to focus on more projects at the same time.

 

[anthony1617]

I take it you have no clue that Majestic, Ahrefs and so on are the most popular bots blocked?

Yet even the very basics of SEO you seem oblivious to, but you will tell others about the fictional Sandbox.

Oh and then there is the fact that Majestic is complete shit for checking backlinks.

One of my sites with about 2000 back links, Majestic will only pick up 200 if that.

No, obviously I get that. My PBN is blocking those crawlers. I can tell, just based on the sites and the niches, that they don't have hidden links. And it doesn't matter, bro, because the niche is extremely low competition and I should at the very least be somewhere in top 100. I'm not, because I'm in a sandbox.

 

[mickyfu]

Other possibilities. shit theme, broken theme, shit on page seo. In fact you could go on and on. However for some it is easier to just say "sandbox".

When I make a site I like to plan and structure it first. Not just buy a domain, add it to a host, load up WordPress and away we go.

 

[Joethemonkey101]

Other possibilities. shit theme, broken theme, shit on page seo. In fact you could go on and on. However for some it is easier to just say "sandbox".

When I make a site I like to plan and structure it first. Not just buy a domain, add it to a host, load up WordPress and away we go.

Sorry for the noob question but could you elaborate on how a theme could be preventing ranking improvements?

 

[accelerator_dd]

Sorry for the noob question but could you elaborate on how a theme could be preventing ranking improvements?

You could go to Google, type "how a theme can impact seo" and read up on it, then come back, write a post detailing your findings and perhaps even do a test/case study.

That way you'll achieve 3 things:
1. You'll learn something
2. You'll improve your research skills so you can learn other cool shit in the future without someone holding your hand all the way
3. Contribute to the community that pointed you in the right direction

 

[anthony1617]

Sorry for the noob question but could you elaborate on how a theme could be preventing ranking improvements?

You could go to Google, type "how a theme can impact seo" and read up on it, then come back, write a post detailing your findings and perhaps even do a test/case study.

That way you'll achieve 3 things:
1. You'll learn something
2. You'll improve your research skills so you can learn other cool shit in the future without someone holding your hand all the way
3. Contribute to the community that pointed you in the right direction

I Googled it. Pretty much all seems like nonsense except:

1. If your theme has a misplaced rel=canonical, it could cause deindexation, and
2. If your theme is just bad, it could make your site slow

Neither is the case. If mickyfu could elaborate on his magical onpage issues that cause your site not to show up in the top 200 for the KW, but to be indexed, it'd be greatly appreciated.

Other possibilities. shit theme, broken theme, shit on page seo. In fact you could go on and on. However for some it is easier to just say "sandbox".

 

[mickyfu]

I Googled it. Pretty much all seems like nonsense except:

1. If your theme has a misplaced rel=canonical, it could cause deindexation, and
2. If your theme is just bad, it could make your site slow

Neither is the case. If mickyfu could elaborate on his magical onpage issues that cause your site not to show up in the top 200 for the KW, but to be indexed, it'd be greatly appreciated.

Seems like nonsense, well you just stick to believing in the sandbox, it will get you further. At least you will not have to blame yourself when you site does not rank. There are plenty of ways a shit theme will stop you from ranking. Ever seen a wix website on page one, or in the top 100 for that matter?

 

[Shree]

It's fact, because the site ranking first for the keyword literally has 20 links total in Majestic, and I have a PBN of 15 sites, all of which have TF and CF 15+, while many of his links transfer no juice whatsoever.

I didn't send all 15 links, of course. But after a few, being nowhere in the top 200 is a bit suspicious.

IMHO, number and power of links is not all there is to this. If the links to your competitors site have been around for 2 years and your links are just around 2 months old, Google may still not rank your site over the other. And then there are social signals to consider. What kind of social signals do the other site have? What about your site?

The other site may have a silo structure and built up a lot of relevance to the ranking page. If that's the case, I would not bet on outranking the page with links alone. Ranking now seems to need three things - relevance, authority and social proof.

And if most of your links are coming from a PBN, you might eventually have a hard time ranking. Diversity - in anchors and platforms is critical. This is what makes it look natural.

 

[archon10]

ugh the sandbox is a myth.

People talk about warrior forum but this forum gets like 45 sandbox questions a day. What's worse are the people who reply "maybe you're sandboxed." Jesus. It's the exact opposite. Your site gets an artificial boost for Google to gather data, and then you rank naturally.

 

[Shree]

No, obviously I get that. My PBN is blocking those crawlers. I can tell, just based on the sites and the niches, that they don't have hidden links. And it doesn't matter, bro, because the niche is extremely low competition and I should at the very least be somewhere in top 100. I'm not, because I'm in a sandbox.

These days, I am not blocking the crawlers anymore. Doing that might actually be telling Google the site belongs to a PBN network. I know many still block crawlers, but many do not.

What kind of site would want to block majestic / ahrefs crawlers? IMO, only PBN sites. That could be a huge footprint right there.

But I do not have any data or test results to back my opinion. So I do not really know whether blocking bots is a good thing to do anymore.

 

[anthony1617]

IMHO, number and power of links is not all there is to this. If the links to your competitors site have been around for 2 years and your links are just around 2 months old, Google may still not rank your site over the other. And then there are social signals to consider. What kind of social signals do the other site have? What about your site?

The other site may have a silo structure and built up a lot of relevance to the ranking page. If that's the case, I would not bet on outranking the page with links alone. Ranking now seems to need three things - relevance, authority and social proof.

And if most of your links are coming from a PBN, you might eventually have a hard time ranking. Diversity - in anchors and platforms is critical. This is what makes it look natural.

If Google gave aged links more power, they would be extremely slow in ranking sites for current events. They give aged sites more power, but not aged links.

Social signals are almost nothing, for you and I, except a little bit of an onpage trust factor. If you have 10 more PBNs than your competitor, you're going to rank higher, even if they have social signals. If Google gave any kind of huge weight to "social signals" serps would be insane. They treat links coming from Facebook just like any other links - they transfer whatever juice they have.

"built up a lot of relevance" I don't even know what that means. Wikipedia?

These days, I am not blocking the crawlers anymore. Doing that might actually be telling Google the site belongs to a PBN network. I know many still block crawlers, but many do not.

What kind of site would want to block majestic / ahrefs crawlers? IMO, only PBN sites. That could be a huge footprint right there.

But I do not have any data or test results to back my opinion. So I do not really know whether blocking bots is a good thing to do anymore.

Lots of real sites block crawlers that aren't Google because they slow down the site. Yeah, it could be a footprint, but Google can't deindex or devalue links based just on that. And obviously there are countless examples of people ranking on purely PBNs that block crawlers.

 

[anthony1617]

Seems like nonsense, well you just stick to believing in the sandbox, it will get you further. At least you will not have to blame yourself when you site does not rank. There are plenty of ways a shit theme will stop you from ranking. Ever seen a wix website on page one, or in the top 100 for that matter?

Yes, there are countless examples of tiny websites with shit content, shit theme, shit color schemes and everything else ranking on page one.

Does Google have a bot going around that says "This site has a bad color scheme, let's devalue it's links 20%"?

Of course not.

 

[Shree]

Here's what I mean by building up relevance - if you use a silo structure for your site, the pages you are trying to rank appear more relevant to Google because a lot of other pages - all on closely related topics - funnel relevance to the page. This way, you can rank with fewer external links. Also, any link to any other page on the site transfers a part of the authority to every other page ... so it's more efficient as well.

 

[archon10]

Yes, there are countless examples of tiny websites with shit content, shit theme, shit color schemes and everything else ranking on page one.

Does Google have a bot going around that says "This site has a bad color scheme, let's devalue it's links 20%"?

Of course not.

Actually, color scheme is a part of user experience, so it is indirectly a ranking factor.

Also, you mention shit sites ranking on page 1 but page 1 for what? Again, spam garbage queries will show someone at page 1, but it doesn't matter because no one uses the query.

 

[mickyfu]

Yes, there are countless examples of tiny websites with shit content, shit theme, shit color schemes and everything else ranking on page one.

Does Google have a bot going around that says "This site has a bad color scheme, let's devalue it's links 20%"?

Of course not.

I do hope you have not quit your day job to pursue IM. Bad colour scheme? What the fuck are you talking about. Try the over usage of Htags just for a start.

Your comment proves just how clueless you really are. Yet you are here trying to tell others about the mythical sandbox. Give it a rest, your last comment is just fucking laughable.