the sandboxed myth

I have a site that have been sandboxed for almost 2 years. It originally disappear after a massive Xrumer blast in 2009.

Meanwhile, I have been building links (more Xrummer,SB,AMR,EVO,BMD,Paid Links,Private Blog Content Network, tried r a n k p a y...etc) and adding content continuously till now...

Almost 2 years on...the site is still in the sandbox...

I wanted SO much to believe that there is NO sandbox...

Meanwhile, I will persevere on ...

agree 100% with Tensegrity

Tensegrity said:

You should read this thread. That tool is bogus.

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the tool is not real. try to put for example the most trusted site on the internet google.co.il for example. the results are "This domain has a severe penalty" i think this answer all. Tensegrity is know what he is talking about and you should listen to him...

M.A.D said:

Google dance, is when you quickly move up and down the serps. Also known as everflux http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/explaining-algorithm-updates-and-data-refreshes/
Sandbox is when factors trigger a algorithm to temporarily "sandbox" to minimize the effect of a abnormal factor. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sandbox_effect

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I am familiar with matt cutts' explanation for the dance, but thanks for pointing that out for others.

Re: wikipedia sandbox article: remember that wikipedia is a reflection of what the world believes to be true, not what is actually true. Again, I urge you to run your own experiments instead of just believing what people tell you.

I think you and others may have taken my point the wrong way. I am referring to the myth that too many backlinks put you in the sandbox. It just isn't that simple and people are going around thinking that they shouldn't build links or should only buy two links at a time and stuff. It's sad to see. I'm trying to dispel that notion and help educate people to understanding what the sandbox is about.

Spitman said:

The greatest trick Matt Cutts ever pulled was convincing the world the Sandbox didn't exist...

For what its worth Google has something like 40 billion pages indexed...saying something doesn't exist due to not having seen it (yet) in your experience on your, and your clients sites is akin to me denying that HIV exists because I have never met anyone that has it.

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Please note that I never said "the sandbox doesn't exist". I said it's a myth that too many backlinks will hurt you. If that were true then you wouldn't see a site ranking number 1 for a highly competitive, high-traffic keyword yet has over a million backlinks.

Some of you people really don't read a thread before you post, do you? LOL

Moayediyan said:

I have one domain that is removed from the top 1000 pages and has not entered for the past 3 weeks or so. What I usually do is set my xrumer drip feed to keep building links, like 300 links per day.

Tensegrity, what do you do or recommend when this happens to a site. I understand what your saying... that a lot has to do with the on-page SEO. But... once this does happen how do you go about getting the site back up in the SERPS? do you just leave it or keep building links to it on a daily basis?

Anyways, thnx for sharing your experience

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When I see a site get sandboxed, my initial strategy is to simply stop working on it for a month to see how it performs. Then start slowly working on carefully structured linking schemes. There are link pushes, link wheels, link pyramids, and link velocity schemes that people all over BHW have been pretty good about explaining and doing case studies on. So I guess my advice is to simply stop working on the site and do some research before moving forward with it again.

Hope this helps!

kryseo said:

I have a site that have been sandboxed for almost 2 years. It originally disappear after a massive Xrumer blast in 2009.

Meanwhile, I have been building links (more Xrummer,SB,AMR,EVO,BMD,Paid Links,Private Blog Content Network, tried r a n k p a y...etc) and adding content continuously till now...

Almost 2 years on...the site is still in the sandbox...

I wanted SO much to believe that there is NO sandbox...

Meanwhile, I will persevere on ...

Click to expand...

Again, I never said there was no sandbox. Please read my original post and subsequently the rest of the thread so that you understand where I'm coming from.

guyabr said:

the tool is not real. try to put for example the most trusted site on the internet google.co.il for example. the results are "This domain has a severe penalty" i think this answer all. Tensegrity is know what he is talking about and you should listen to him...

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Thanks, guyabr.

Listen, people... I'm not trying to spread disinformation or get people to buy my links or say that the sandbox doesn't exist. Before people launch into trying to prove me wrong, try stopping with the straw-man arguments (i.e. arguing with me over something I didn't ever say!) and just think about what I actually DID say.

Spitman said:

For what its worth Google has something like 40 billion pages indexed...saying something doesn't exist due to not having seen it (yet) in your experience on your, and your clients sites is akin to me denying that HIV exists because I have never met anyone that has it.

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Also (aside from the fact that I never said the sandbox didn't exist), I feel like you're missing the whole point here. I'm trying to share my knowledge of backlinking with the noobs cuz I've been running a successful backlinking and SEO service for a long time. Yea, you're right, I haven't seen every single site, and I never claimed to know everything there is to know about backlinking or goog. I'm just trying to give a perspective from someone who looks at rankings and linking campaigns for hundreds of sites per week. I guess it's not appreciated by you, fine, but there's no need to come and piss on my thread about it, ya know?

I feel like the ones walking in here and arguing with me about stuff I never said are the real ones spreading poor information around here...

Spitman said:

The greatest trick Matt Cutts ever pulled was convincing the world the Sandbox didn't exist....

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No the greatest trick was convincing people that he knows all and tells all and would never steer you wrong.

Hi Tensegrity,

I have been following this thread and I appreciate you sharing your knowledge, I have a question about linking and sandbox (if it really exists).

If your page you are linking to contains the keyword in the title, description, meta tags and you have your keyword in your body of your page, lets say at least 2.0%, there is no problem building massive amounts of links to that particular page using the same keyword in your link?

Thanks
Neeoo

Neeoo said:

Hi Tensegrity,

I have been following this thread and I appreciate you sharing your knowledge, I have a question about linking and sandbox (if it really exists).

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it definitely exists, my friend.

Neeoo said:

If your page you are linking to contains the keyword in the title, description, meta tags and you have your keyword in your body of your page, lets say at least 2.0%, there is no problem building massive amounts of links to that particular page using the same keyword in your link?

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I'm not sure what you're asking me. What you described is basic SEO 101. Be careful of link velocity, as we've already discussed in this thread.

My personal experience says otherwise.

I blasted my sites with 10k xrumer. They ranked well for a couple of weeks, then massively dropped off in ratings. They stayed that way for weeks and didn't shift. Only when I started link-building strategies with white hat techniques that utalized web 2.0's did my websites move. And move they have.

Personal experience for me says that there was no "dance", nor was there a "sandbox". My sites simply lost the power the mass backlinks held. I'm not sure if it was panda or if it happened before that too; but google figured it out and devalued those links. So I guess I was either penalized or google discounted them.

But if n00bs want to come along and blast their sites and fail in the rankings; then go right ahead, the better it is for me! LOL. I just won't be apart of that ship.

Also; experience for me shows that on-site optimization, with good backlinking, is certainly not necessary for rankings. Experience has also shown it GREATLY helps however, LOL.

BLACKHAT1984 said:

In my personal opinion the sandbox is basically low trust. If google doesn't see any decent content worth ranking that isn't elsewhere and links really quickly being built it removes the site from serps until it gains trust. I don't believe you can damage someones site with links, it's the most ridiculous thing ever....just think about it.

As for believing matt cutts, of course he's going to say things that'll make people stop abusing google....

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Yeah ahhh Google ABUSES me...

Windmill said:

My personal experience says otherwise.

I blasted my sites with 10k xrumer. They ranked well for a couple of weeks, then massively dropped off in ratings. They stayed that way for weeks and didn't shift. Only when I started link-building strategies with white hat techniques that utalized web 2.0's did my websites move. And move they have.

Personal experience for me says that there was no "dance", nor was there a "sandbox". My sites simply lost the power the mass backlinks held. I'm not sure if it was panda or if it happened before that too; but google figured it out and devalued those links. So I guess I was either penalized or google discounted them.

But if n00bs want to come along and blast their sites and fail in the rankings; then go right ahead, the better it is for me! LOL. I just won't be apart of that ship.

Also; experience for me shows that on-site optimization, with good backlinking, is certainly not necessary for rankings. Experience has also shown it GREATLY helps however, LOL.

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There's a ton of possible reasons the xrumer blast hurt you. I know for a fact that 10k xrumer can permanently help a site. You probably got something else going on, or maybe it's just simply the link velocity.

The last thing to remember is that if you don't put your keyword as the anchor text in all your backlinks

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Say whaaaaaatttt ? can you explain more and give some examples ?

polocolto said:

The argument that G does not penalize a site for too many backlinks cuz you can do it to your competitor is not true. Let's analise everything carefully. I believe that G does not have a negative penalty, but simple devalues the links created.

The problem here is that G cannot determine legitimate links from not legitimate. Let's say i blast my competitor with several links and G devalues them all. This site will drop because G devalued not only the links i created ( not legitimate ), but the ones that were built by the site owner ( legitimate links ).

If this is what really happens, then the answer is yes, you can hurt your competitor indirectly by devaluing his legitimate links.

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I think these are probably the best semantics to use on the topic. If you spam especially shady links, Google will recognize your methods, and "devalue" the bonus you've seen from the method on an extreme level, if not entirely. If your competitor has lots of other links built in a similar fashion, those really could get lumped in.

The important distinction to draw is simply that it is indirect harm- it effects how your link portfolio is seen, which is different than how the site itself is seen. If this happens to destroy all relevance that your site had in the process, it is feasible to totally drop out of a big search; but if all your site ever had were dirty xrumer links, etc. - it shouldn't be hard to understand why Google never trusted this site much to begin with. That can generally be fixed by simply building better links. 1 high value link can still often do more than 100,000 dirty links.

qwidjib0 said:

I think these are probably the best semantics to use on the topic. If you spam especially shady links, Google will recognize your methods, and "devalue" the bonus you've seen from the method on an extreme level, if not entirely. If your competitor has lots of other links built in a similar fashion, those really could get lumped in.

The important distinction to draw is simply that it is indirect harm- it effects how your link portfolio is seen, which is different than how the site itself is seen. If this happens to destroy all relevance that your site had in the process, it is feasible to totally drop out of a big search; but if all your site ever had were dirty xrumer links, etc. - it shouldn't be hard to understand why Google never trusted this site much to begin with. That can generally be fixed by simply building better links. 1 high value link can still often do more than 100,000 dirty links.

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Well said.

This is exactly my point: it's not the quantity that hurts you, it's the quality. And even poor quality doesn't hurt you, it just gets discredited. Otherwise, you may run into the issue I brought up before of combining on-site keyword stuffing with a giant blast, that is the only other thing I've seen that can hurt you, but if you fix your on-site then it corrects itself.