How long is the sandbox?

feelfreeto

feelfreeto

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I started a brand new blog in March this year and right now I am getting only 2-5 organic visits per day.
> I used brand new domain with 0 history
> Published 20 articles in total: 10 long ones 2500-4000 words and 10 more of 1000-1500 words. SEO optimized, with images, high quality texts.
> Built a handful of high quality backlinks from the niche relevant websites (white hat GPs and niche edits)
> Moz DA is 13, SEMRush AS 17
> Great social signals from Pinterest, one of the posts went viral and I still get reshares regularly
> I keep publishing more content, focusing on non-existent competition keywords.
> According to the research tools I have only 1 keyword phrase ranking in the top 10, a few between 10 and 20, and the rest are lower than that.

Question: Does it look like I am still in the sandbox? How much time does it take to get out of it these days?

P.S. I did the competition analysis of the keywords and I'm pretty sure I picked the keywords of very low competition (Ahrerfs KW difficulty of 0-1 having at least a couple of DR 0-3 websites in the top10). And the last 10 posts are targeting KGR keywords.
 
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What happens when you search for your brand name? Where does it sit in the serps?
 
jamie3000 said:
What happens when you search for your brand name? Where does it sit in the serps?
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My brand name (equals domain name) consists of 2 words, one of them is kind of invented, another one is a popular common word.
If I type into google both of them together (like my domain name without .com), then it comes up #1. If I type in separately, then at the bottom of the 2nd page.

I also have some 1k word articles targeting keyword phrases that have only 3-5 content rich results in the top 10 (with 20-70 monthly search volume). And when I search for them, I can find my site only on the 2-3 pages.
 
seems like not enough authority
or you think you should jump into top3 with your handful links?
 
soa0611 said:
seems like not enough authority
or you think you should jump into top3 with your handful links?
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Depending on the competition. As I said previously some of the articles are targeting keyword phrases that literally don't have competition. At all. And I don't rank even for them. And also, I could start getting some traffic from those secondary low search volume keywords too. But 2-5 visits per day seems that I'm still in the sandbox. Don't you think?
 
feelfreeto said:
Depending on the competition. As I said previously some of the articles are targeting keyword phrases that literally don't have competition. At all. And I don't rank even for them. And also, I could start getting some traffic from those secondary low search volume keywords too. But 2-5 visits per day seems that I'm still in the sandbox. Don't you think?
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i do believe in sandbox
usually it was 3-4 months as for me, but after last G update it can take more, i am also facing something similar at the moment
 
This is normal.. Sandbox period is around 6 months.
Keep posting more content and building links, you should start seeing some growth in 1-2 months.
 
For a site which has a purpose like yours-

No site ranks untill and unless it has constant 6 months influx of content and links. That is bare minimum actually and dont be surprised if it takes a year even.
Remember- you will need new content, new links and new social shares every month.
 
20 articles is nothing man, if you started the blog in March and added only 20 articles till the middle of September you shouldn't be surprised for the lack of high ranking. That's an average of less than 4 articles per month, you will never rank with that little content.

Another question for you is are the topics you are writting about closely related? If you have a site that's about dogs and you added a single article for every breed you'll never rank. What you should do is take one breed and write all about it, write 20-30 articles or more and you will see much better results. Because then, Google understands you are producing a lot of content about a specific topic (and sees you as an authority for that topic) and therefore ranks you higher for the keywords that are related to that topic.
 
Work on your on-page and off-page, your site will eventually come out of sandbox. Google looks for accurate & relevant information, only way to do that is to show Google that your site is getting enough user interaction, and people actually read & check out your content.

Social signals also play a major role, in your case you already have a bit of head start. Start publishing content, reduce bounce rate, and build quality links. Also try to find sites for guest posting as they are one of the main factors which helps in ranking.

Since you are already ranking for few keywords, try to look for less competitive ones and create content based on those researched keywords. Keep doing it until you are ranking in lots of low competitive keyword (KGR helps).
 
RedMoonVPN said:
20 articles is nothing man, if you started the blog in March and added only 20 articles till the middle of September you shouldn't be surprised for the lack of high ranking. That's an average of less than 4 articles per month, you will never rank with that little content.

Another question for you is are the topics you are writting about closely related? If you have a site that's about dogs and you added a single article for every breed you'll never rank. What you should do is take one breed and write all about it, write 20-30 articles or more and you will see much better results. Because then, Google understands you are producing a lot of content about a specific topic (and sees you as an authority for that topic) and therefore ranks you higher for the keywords that are related to that topic.
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You are right. I have 30 articles that most about KGR, but no ranking currently, maybe I choose a big niche. I selelct 'baby' and write various aritlces about it. Maybe I should choose baby sub-niche to do, thanks
 
For the latest site I put up, it's 6 months

The good news is once Google starts sending traffic, it's nice and consistent and easily scales up

How? Just link to internal pages targeting higher volume kws from pages getting search traffic
 
Menelik Mac said:
Are all your links indexed?
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Out of those that I created (using GP or niche edits) I can't see in GSC only one. The rest are there. Research tools see more backlinks than GSC though including that one missing.
 
Sandbox doesn't exist from my experience. My websites usually rank for the first keywords within a week or 2. But I never target competitive keywords at the start tho.
 
pwetty said:
Sandbox doesn't exist from my experience. My websites usually rank for the first keywords within a week or 2. But I never target competitive keywords at the start tho.
Click to expand...
Expired domains? If yes, i have had similar experience
 
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