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“...probably the best newsletter on search engine promotion in the world.”
This month's issue
Google Major Index Update
Some Relief for Google's Sandboxed Sites
Part 1
Originally Published: March 2005
Courtesy of
SearchEngineNews.com
| March 2005
Google was on a tear this month, undergoing a significant rewrite of its search engine listings in what may have been the longest rolling update we've seen ever! One particularly interesting development relates to the so-called Google Sandbox effect.
The Google Sandbox describes a seemingly consistent phenomenon where it often takes anywhere from six months to a year (sometimes longer) before a new site is allowed to rank well for competitive terms in Google. Some may debate as to whether the Sandbox truly exists, but the difficulty for new sites to rank well in competitive keyword searches within Google is undeniable.
Speculation is that Google puts a filter on the age of a site for certain highly competitive phrases. This initial ranking slowdown may help to put the kibosh on a site's early attempts to manipulate their rankings upward via strategies like purchasing links from high PageRank sites. Google appears to be thinking that impatient webmasters who don't see an immediate reward for their optimization efforts may just decide to abandon them altogether. Of course, giving up is exactly what Google would want them to do.
Whatever the reason for the Sandbox effect, this last update saw the release of several long-Sandboxed sites, including a few of our own. Could it be that Google's improved ability to detect many popular link-spamming techniques has rendered the Sandbox unnecessary?
If you find that your site is being effected by the Google Sandbox, the best approach we've found is to just ignore it. There's very little that you can do to prevent the Sandbox effect. Our advice is that you just keep building links, adding content, and optimizing your site as you would normally. Sooner or later you'll emerge from the Sandbox and will have already laid the foundation for a high ranking site. That is precisely what we've seen take place with our own test pages.
You'd be wise to avoid stagnant pages, stale sites...
We've also seen a new issue arise in which Google seems to be dropping some sites that have not been updated or acquired any new inbound links for a year or more. Could this be a new strategy by Google to reduce the number of stale sites in their index? ...or is it just a coincidence we've run across? We're not yet sure.
In any case, it's certainly something to watch for – especially if you have sites sitting around that haven't been updated for awhile. It certainly wouldn't hurt to add or move around some links just to be on the safe side.
By no means have we seen this happen to all stale sites – just enough to make us wonder if something's going on. Be sure to bear this in mind before you make any drastic changes.
The BIG story is...
By far the biggest story regarding Google's latest update is that several pages which previously enjoyed first page ranking in Google took a big hit this past month. If this is news to you, then consider yourself one of the lucky ones. You've been spared – many were not so fortunate. You see, this was not just any ole update. This update ushered in a significant modification of Google's ranking algorithm. Which brings us to our next big story...
Google continues their anti-link-spamming crusade with a major new algorithm update
Google is clearly cracking down on link-spamming in a big way. Hot on the heels of January's introduction of the nofollow tag (designed to thwart link-spamming within blog comments), it looks like Google has now adjusted their algorithm to better detect and neutralize several of the tell-tale strategies of traditional link-spamming, including:
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Too many links with identical link anchor text.
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Too many links all originating from the same domain – i.e., run of the site links.
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Too many links going to your homepage with few or none linking to your internal sub-pages.
It appears to us that Google is attempting to de-emphasize run-of-the-site links, all-identical anchor text links, and even reciprocal links to some degree. They may also be devaluing links from off-topic sites as well (though there is less evidence to support this assertion). In other words, if you sell hot tub supplies, but you have an incoming link from a financial services page, that link may be discounted due to the fact that financial services are "off-topic" for hot tub supplies.
By the way, we're not surprised. We've been warning for some time now that these changes were all but inevitable. (See our previously published article; 12 Essential Strategies for Building & Structuring Inbound Links, where we discuss the differences between a natural and artificial link structure). This was advice that many ignored – perhaps due to the fact that the ole link-spamming tricks were working more quickly in many cases (and, by the way, continue to work in MSN and Yahoo – at least for the time being). However, it was clear to us that those tricks were on Google's hit list. And it was only a matter of time before Google figured out a way to detect and devalue them. It seems that day has arrived.
Continued:
Google Major Index Update: Some Relief for Google's Sandboxed Sites Part 2 >>>
This article is copyrighted and has been reprinted with permission from FirstPlace Software, the makers of WebPosition.
FirstPlace Software helped define the SEO industry with the introduction of the first product to track your rankings on the major search engines and to help you improve those rankings.
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