Time Outs (Google Absurdity)
Recently I read an excerpt from an interview with Google employee Matt Cutts. During the discussion, the interviewer asked a question about the sanbox, to which Matt Cutts began to answer. Naturally, the interviewer interrupted saying, "Wait a second, are you admitting that there's a sandbox," to which Matt started to wiggle his way away from the topic. But the most notable (and most telling) part of the "wiggle" was that Cutts did NOT deny it.
If that's not enough evidence for you, consider this:
Pin Bottle ranks #1 on MSN for Boston Website Design, #3 on Yahoo and around #530 in Google. Subsequently, Pin Bottle Boston Website Design ranks #7 for "allinanchor:Boston Website Design," it's whole site is being indexed around every 5 days, and it's blog entries are indexed almost immediately (at least that's what is seems like lately). Unfortunately, our domain is only 3 months old, so it ranks behind sites about cookies, flowers, jewlery and bicycles. Why do these sites rank higher? Because in their footnote the phrase "Boston Website Design" exists reffering to to the fact that their site was created by a web designer. (Pretty absurd huh? And one more note of absurdity: Is it really necessary to bury a site 500 results deep? When was the last time someone searched for something and actually digged 500 results deep? It's like Google is saying, "We realize you're trying to be a 'Boston Website Designer,' but quite frankly, we just don't trust you. In fact, our trust in you is so small that we'd rather steer the searcher toward a completely unrelated topic before we ever sent them to your site!" Personally, when I search for something and get results that have nothing to do with what I searched for, it pisses me off and I end up navigating away from the site).
Google tells us to play by the rules and with a quality site with enough White Hat SEO, our sites will rank well, but what they don't tell us that if our site is not well-aged, with well-aged back-links, we will have to sit in Time Out until they tell us we can come out and play again (just had an elementary school flashback).
As the above examples demonstrate, the sandbox undoubtebly exists, so why not just come out and admit it? In my opinion, sandboxing new sites contributes to poor SEO practices, which then triggers a snow-ball effect of SEO malpractice, like this scenario:
New web owners who are frustrated when they find out they're black-listed will likely want to find out why. As soon as they learn the word "sand-box," they then stumble upon the word SEO, and all that it entails. Next, looking for a quick-fix, they read bad advice and bogus info on the net, and start focussing on Page Rank, keyword density, and reciprocal linking. They flood their pages with keywords, and trade links with bad-neighborhoods until by the time they learn that these techniques will only hurt their chances of getting out of the sandbox, it's too late!
Lets face it, sometimes people don't always make the best decisions, especially when they're given bad advice from so called "experts" on a topic they know nothing about. These people are most likely Small Business owners with families just like you and I, trying to put food on the table. There's no question that Google is an American Business success, but has Google become so big that they've forgotten about the little man? It just seems like they hinder a lot of honest working people from making a buck by not explaining the sandbox in detail.
There IS a solution, but it takes some leg work. Instead of starting a new domain from scratch, search and find an expired domain that has been around for at least two years and has at least one page indexed by Google. A two year old domain will cut down dramatically on any "time-outs" handed down for any keywords, and if a page is indexed, it means that it hasn't been banned. At the very least, this is a better start, but if you really want maximize your results, dig further. Find a domain name that's related to your niche, and then research it's back-links and answer these questions: Are they from bad neighborhoods? Are they related? Do they include your keywords in the anchor text, and if so, is the anchor text used identical? How many total back-links exist? Gathering this information will certainly help you find the right domain, and if you happen to find a good one, you won't have to spend as much time in TIME OUT (If only I'd gone this route for Pin Bottle Boston Website Design!).
If that's not enough evidence for you, consider this:
Pin Bottle ranks #1 on MSN for Boston Website Design, #3 on Yahoo and around #530 in Google. Subsequently, Pin Bottle Boston Website Design ranks #7 for "allinanchor:Boston Website Design," it's whole site is being indexed around every 5 days, and it's blog entries are indexed almost immediately (at least that's what is seems like lately). Unfortunately, our domain is only 3 months old, so it ranks behind sites about cookies, flowers, jewlery and bicycles. Why do these sites rank higher? Because in their footnote the phrase "Boston Website Design" exists reffering to to the fact that their site was created by a web designer. (Pretty absurd huh? And one more note of absurdity: Is it really necessary to bury a site 500 results deep? When was the last time someone searched for something and actually digged 500 results deep? It's like Google is saying, "We realize you're trying to be a 'Boston Website Designer,' but quite frankly, we just don't trust you. In fact, our trust in you is so small that we'd rather steer the searcher toward a completely unrelated topic before we ever sent them to your site!" Personally, when I search for something and get results that have nothing to do with what I searched for, it pisses me off and I end up navigating away from the site).
Google tells us to play by the rules and with a quality site with enough White Hat SEO, our sites will rank well, but what they don't tell us that if our site is not well-aged, with well-aged back-links, we will have to sit in Time Out until they tell us we can come out and play again (just had an elementary school flashback).
As the above examples demonstrate, the sandbox undoubtebly exists, so why not just come out and admit it? In my opinion, sandboxing new sites contributes to poor SEO practices, which then triggers a snow-ball effect of SEO malpractice, like this scenario:
New web owners who are frustrated when they find out they're black-listed will likely want to find out why. As soon as they learn the word "sand-box," they then stumble upon the word SEO, and all that it entails. Next, looking for a quick-fix, they read bad advice and bogus info on the net, and start focussing on Page Rank, keyword density, and reciprocal linking. They flood their pages with keywords, and trade links with bad-neighborhoods until by the time they learn that these techniques will only hurt their chances of getting out of the sandbox, it's too late!
Lets face it, sometimes people don't always make the best decisions, especially when they're given bad advice from so called "experts" on a topic they know nothing about. These people are most likely Small Business owners with families just like you and I, trying to put food on the table. There's no question that Google is an American Business success, but has Google become so big that they've forgotten about the little man? It just seems like they hinder a lot of honest working people from making a buck by not explaining the sandbox in detail.
There IS a solution, but it takes some leg work. Instead of starting a new domain from scratch, search and find an expired domain that has been around for at least two years and has at least one page indexed by Google. A two year old domain will cut down dramatically on any "time-outs" handed down for any keywords, and if a page is indexed, it means that it hasn't been banned. At the very least, this is a better start, but if you really want maximize your results, dig further. Find a domain name that's related to your niche, and then research it's back-links and answer these questions: Are they from bad neighborhoods? Are they related? Do they include your keywords in the anchor text, and if so, is the anchor text used identical? How many total back-links exist? Gathering this information will certainly help you find the right domain, and if you happen to find a good one, you won't have to spend as much time in TIME OUT (If only I'd gone this route for Pin Bottle Boston Website Design!).
posted by Jason McElwaine at
6:13 AM
<< Home