Are these signs of Google Sandboxing?

[KennethS]

Hello,

This is my first post but I have been receiving the newsletter for a very long time. I have read every SEO article that I have gotten my hands on in the last year but I have yet to post here ;P.

I started a site almost a year ago in hopes of creating a nice site that I could get into Google. So much for that. After spending many waking nights in front of the computer I realised that I needed to pay more attention to SEO so I began doing so. So far I have most every bad tactic weeded out, every rumoured (helpful SEO tips) incorporated, and as many backlinks as I feel are necessary.

At around 6 months ago I submitted the site to Google and all of the other major and semi-major search engines/directories. Google indexed at first over 1000 pages past my index and gave me no PageRank, after some restructering it has over 500 indexed pages. Five months later Google has been nice enough and tagged me with a PageRank of 4. I am very happy with this since It was once 0 and my work payed off.

The problem arose when the other search engines finally put me on page 1 for my effort for the keywords I was shooting for, even the new MSN one did, but Google was giving me the cold shoulder on the keywords. Pages that mentioned my the keywords I want offhandedly once, have no backlinks, or PR are ranked on page 5+. My site however is ranked somewhere past page 50 (I stopped looking after page 50). I could not figure out why this would be happening with the PR of 4 until I remembered reading about Google Sandbox and probationary periods on new sites. Most tagged this as a rumour but I will let you give me your personal opinions.

Speaking of opinions thanks to everyone who has written on the Sandbox topic and if I missed anything you may think I will find usefil cite it here please.

Thanks,

Kenneth

[cbp]

Welcome to WPW

Not sandboxed because:

I started a site almost a year ago

Most sites who think they are sandboxed are not, they just do not rank well.

What is the URL?

CBP

[KennethS]

Hello again,

Sorry about the long delay in posting the site and response but IRL has been hectic.

The site address is www.equiltpatterns.com.

The site has however been indexed for 5-6 months with no luck in the google rankings.

If you have any suggestions I would be more than happy to use them.

Thanks,

Kenneth

[mj2043]

As I see you have few back links, and all most all from one or two sites. (I check only in Google, it 29 back links) So try to build more links from different sites, it takes time, but works.

[Sanjo]

You have a PR of 4 you are definately not "sandboxed"

[cbp]

You have a PR of 4 you are definately not "sandboxed"

Sandboxed sites can and do hve PR. My severely sandboxed site is PR4 (at last update) - probably >5 now.

CBP

[Wotan]

I looked up 'free quilt patterns': 650 mark, for 'quilt patterns' not even in the top 1,000. It appears a sandboxing to me although your backlinks number just 29, nearly all from another site registered by yourself (if it's on the same IP range Google may discount these links). Getting more inbound links must be your priority, it will pull your SERPS back up and you may find that this isn't a sandbox after all.

There are a few good postings on this forum with lists of 100's of sites who will happily link to you.

G'luck.

N.

[cbp]

It appears a sandboxing to me

The sandbox is a very specific thing only applied to sites that are new domains since around March/April 2004. The site in question is older than that. It also does not have the other characteristics of a sandboxed site (eg ranking well for the allin's etc)

There is a big difference between a sandboxed site and a site that does not rank well.

CBP

[KennethS]

Hello again,

Thanks for all of the info and I will definently look up on getting some more backlinks.

Yes the domain was registered a good few years ago but the main traffic generator and backlink is not on the same IP range yet.

I would love to get some backlinks from sites with relevant content and any suggestions would be wonderful.

I will be searching the forum for related sites to find more links.

Thanks,

Kenneth S.

[SEOforGoogle]

Have you submitted your site to directories? Do you have press releases? Do you write articles? All of those will help not only with your ranking, but your web saturation as well.

[eggypiece]

KennethS,

I see no PR for your homepage, just a gray bar.

[KennethS]

Yes I have submitted the site to almost every directory I could find that was free.

We do send out a newsletter but there is no article content on the website itself.

No we do not currently have any press releases.

[KennethS]

Eggypiece, make sure you are putting the (www). I am aware that without that I have 0 PR.