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:

• Too many links with identical link anchor text.
• Too many links all originating from the same domain ? i.e., run of the site links.
• 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.

It's still a bit difficult to tell at this early stage in the game, but all preliminary data we're seeing boils down to one simple idea ? Google has gotten better at recognizing artificial link structures. And smart search engine marketers will adapt their online strategies accordingly.

For reference, here are the guidelines we published (Nov '04) on how to build a natural looking link structure:

1. Focus on creating a natural incoming link structure that builds steadily but gradually over time.
2. Focus on getting links from authoritative sites with high PageRank. If they also happen to be on-topic, then all the better.
3. It's ok to get links from less important sites but remember: the lower the PageRank of a referring page, the more you'll want it to match your topic.
4. Strive to get your inbound links placed on pages with few outbound links... the fewer the better.
5. See to it that the URL format of your referring links are consistently identical.
6. Get your keywords into the anchor text of your incoming links as much as possible. However, avoid identical incoming link anchor text.
7. When starting out, focus on the major directories as a source of important links then shift to the topic-specific directories to solidify the theme relevance of your site.
8. Work your trade directories, press releases, suppliers, customers, and testimonials as an outside the box approach to building a gradual, solid, lasting, and natural incoming link structure. Think creatively.
9. Don't waste a lot of time getting reciprocal links. Their value is diminishing in the current SE environment. We see a time coming when the value of reciprocal links between non-authoritative sites will be discounted or entirely cancelled out.
10. Avoid reciprocal links with pages that are designed solely for exchanging links.
11. Avoid linking back to sites that are unlisted by Google or Yahoo. Seriously avoid linking to link farms, web rings or any site that exhibits behavior contrary to a search engine's recommended protocol. Avoid linking to controversial sites unless they perfectly match the topic of your page.
12. Always remember that profits are your goal. More links does not always add more customers. Avoid wasting energy on projects that may increase link counts but add little or nothing to gain customers that generate profits.

    Referenced article:
    12 Essential Strategies for Building & Structuring Inbound Links
    MarketPosition December 2004

    And now we'll add three additional guidelines:

13. Avoid run-of-the-site links. These are links where every page of a site links to your homepage. When you have, say, 1000 incoming links all originating from subpages within the same site, it appears to Google that your link count is artificially inflated.


14. Make sure that some of your links are deep links ? i.e., links to sub-pages within your site and other than your homepage.


15. See to it that your incoming links from off-site pages do not include the rel="nofollow" attribute within the source code of the link; nofollow renders the link useless to your ranking efforts because Google doesn't credit your page for having that incoming link.

Sites that followed the above guidelines ? including all the sites we manage (save for a few test sites) ? were totally unaffected by this latest update. In fact, if we had only been focusing on our own commercial sites this month and not testing and monitoring the rankings for several high profile keywords, we might not have even noticed there was an update at all. That's how focused Google's algorithm update appears to be on clearing out what they view as link-spam.

Now, let's make one thing very clear. We are NOT advising you to dismantle your existing "artificial" link structures ? chances are, that would be a huge mistake. This is especially true if you weren't effected by the most recent update. See it instead as a wake-up call in the event that you were thinking that Google would never get around to detecting and discounting artificial link structures, and as an incentive to begin focusing more on developing natural-looking incoming links. But otherwise, follow the rule, if it ain't broke, don't fix it.

Relief? ...overkill? ...a slight (maybe temporary) rollback?

After the initial onslaught left many sites decimated in the rankings, Google actually rolled back some of the changes. As a result of the rollback, some of the fallen sites have risen back to their previous status within the rankings. Perhaps Google felt they had overstepped their bounds? After all, many of the fallen weren't engaged in link-spam but got caught up in the sweep anyway. One thought is that maybe the algorithm update didn't go entirely as planned. In any case, it's clear that Google pulled back a bit from their initially aggressive dragnet.

Regardless, wide swaths of sites that formerly ranked on the first page of Google's search results based on aggressive link-building tactics now find themselves with a much lower ranking even for relatively unique search phrases like their own company or domain name.

Incidentally, Google has set up an email address dedicated to taking webmaster's comments about this latest update. Perhaps it's because they want to feel your pain ? but it could also be an indication they are a wee-bit uncomfortable with the way the update turned out. You can register your views by going to feb05feedback@googlegroups.com.

The above article is reprinted with permission from Planet Ocean's SearchEngineNews.com, copyright 2005, and distributed with permission by WebTrends maker of WebPosition, the award-winning software that helps track and improve your search engine rankings. You may download a FREE trial copy of WebPosition from: http://www.webposition.com/trial/

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