Google Sandbox & Site Review

Andrew a reader of My Affiliate Programs.com recently wrote asking me to take a look at a newly launched site of his (Andrew mentioned it was his first “real” site with his own domain). Instead of simply replying I thought I would give my ideas and opinions on the site here on my marketing blog. This way others may get some ideas or tips that might help them as well.

Andrew’s Letters:

I have my first real site up (real domain), you can see it at wow-levelingguide.com That keyword/niche is based off the success I had with my blogspot blog. No ebay links, just affiliate.

I made the site on the 27th and it was actually ranking on the second page
for the search term “wow leveling guide”.  Then it dropped off for a day..
and then it came back yesterday.

Its gone again (as expected) but the main page wow-levelingguide.com
is in the supplemental results, while the url to a certain post I made
is in the main results.

If you search for wow-levelingguide.com you’ll see what I mean. I’ve been reading a lot of seo sites/blogs, but never fully understood this process.
Is this what the term “sandboxed” is?

And..

Is it true that it won’t come out of the supplemental results for up to
a whole year, if ever?

Last question:

Was this whole thing to be expected on a brand new domain and is
this the process I’ll be going through for each site I create? Thanks a lot.  Really sorry to keep bugging you.

PS - I’ll also note.  The first time my site dropped from the results
was literally 20 minutes after I submitted one of the articles
to a social bookmarking site.  (for the second time..just a different article)

Andrew, congrats on launching your first site on your own domain. You mention this being your first “real site” I think any site or page online that makes you money is plenty real! Below I have listed some answers to your questions as well as some tweaks that might help push your ranking just a bit higher.

1. Current Ranking On Google: Currently (October 4^th) your site is ranking in the top twenty (18^th to be exact). I think you did a great job and the site looks nice and is quite strong at some basic seo concepts that can help you rank well.
2. On Rankings Dropping Off: I have noticed that newer sites will bounce around some on Google. One day you might be in the top twenty – the next day your ranking at 35. If your in the top 50 consistently your doing well and you can take steps to slowly push your rankings up.
3. Thoughts On The Sandbox: Many seo experts have coined the term Google Sandbox to refer to a waiting period that Google places on new sites as well as “new inbound links to a site”. Over time inbound links to a site gain “link juice” or ranking power. The same can be said of domain age, an older domain is more likely to rank well that a newer domain, think in terms of years rather than months.I personally like to think of Google ranks more in terms of “points gained” and “points lost”. Each webpage is a singed a point value and higher points result in higher rankings.

   You may earn points based on a domain name, Andrew I think you did well with your domain name which is probably one of the reasons why your ranking well early.

   + points for domain name

   Andrew, from what I can gather you wrote all the content yourself, smart move. Having unique content that is not found else where online probably also gave you a few points.

   + points for content not found anywhere else online

   Title tag, the title tag is the most important “on page” factor when it comes to ranking in the search engines. Your title is great, however I think you could get some additional terms in your title that might help you to rank well for additional search terms.

   + points for a good title tag

   Meta Description, in my book this is huge. Google uses a meta description in the search engine results pages. Having your main term in the meta description is important for high rankings.

   It also entices the people searching Google to click your link. If you have a meta description that is compelling it can not only boost your rankings but can also send more visitors to your page.

   Here is your meta description:

   Come here for the best wow leveling guide and for good world of warcraft leveling guides.  We also have some wow botting guides as well.Not bad at all However I would have tried to get additional terms people may search for when looking for wow leveling guides. I know for a fact people use terms like horde, priest, mage, ect ….

   I would have also cut out any fluff, you only get so many characters -

   I would write something like:

   Advice and tips on wow leveling, find world of war craft guides for priests, mages…. bla bla bla
   
   Bottom line: cram in as many keywords as possible. Make it read able and compelling.

   + points for a good meta description
   
   Links from sites other than your own. Getting linked from other sites will really help your site over time. You mentioned you have a blog on blogspot on the same subject. I hope you added a link from that older site to your newly launched site

   Links from social networks helps, while many of these social sites use no follow tags I have seen evidence from many of my own sites that these links do help boost rankings.

   Links from “trusted sites” also boost rankings. Yahoo directory is a great example and can help a sites ranking over time. Sites within the same niche can also have a very positive ranking on sites.

   + Andrew you get more points for your social network link.

   Internal Linking ….
   Links are important, and links on your own site can also help quite a bit. Andrew you have a link on every page of your site that is based on a “Home” button. I would lose that or add a link to your footer that links to your homepage.

   DONT USE THE WORDS HOME!

   This is a big mistake that many people make, using the word “home” tells Google your homepage is about “home”. This also does not help your ranking. Instead link to your homepage with:

   wow leveling guide 

   How I handle this is by using a two link system:

   Link in top navigation says “Home” however I use a no follow tag  My footer link then always uses one or two terms i am trying to rank for.

   – No points (or few) for internal link structure.

   Affiliate Links:
   I have seen evidence that regular html affiliate links can really hurt your seo rank in Google. So I now use only javascript links (Google can not read java) or I cloak my links using a simple php redirect on my own site. This makes it appear as the affiliate links are on my own site. Andrew I see your using a service “Please Click Or Go Here” ….

   Not bad, but I think it is better to link to a page on your own site. All in all you get points for not using a standard html aff link.

   + points for cloaking affiliate links

   Unique Content On Every “Page” Of A Website

   Andrew this is an area I think you can improve on, right now your homepage has full wordpress “posts”. These posts are also found on the individual “perma link pages”.

   If you were to tweak your wordpress theme to use the php tag “php excerpt” instead of “php content” on the following pages you would then get different content across your site. This gives Google a reason why they should include different pages of your site.

   Right now Google thinks “Well all this great content is found on the homepage so I won’t worry too much about the other pages”.

   I always take a wordpress theme and tweak it for maximum seo benefit. This is one way to get the most out of each and every page.

   I also see your adding “posts” to more than one wordpress category, this is another no no …. You want each and every page Google see’s (they don’t know the difference between wordpress categories, rss feeds, permalink pages, and pages) Google only see’s “web documents with words”.

   – no points – internal site duplicate content Outbound Links
   Andrew, you might be able to boost your rankings by adding regular non affiliate outbound links. Right now I only see links that are affiliate based. In fact if goggle looked (and they do) at your outbound links they would only see one oubound domain link used over and over again. This does not look like much of a resource for Google Users now does it?

   I would have added about 5 to 8 links to sites that rank well for wow guide in my “blogroll”. I would also then use the Google Blog search and look for sites about wow. I would then post new content and I would add a link to other blog posts with your content (last two or three sentences as too not loose too many visitors) and use the “trackback” link from these other posts.

   Often times this will get you inbound links from other blogs about your own content. If you do this over time they might even add your site to their blog roll which could really boost your rankings.

All in all Andrew I think your off to a great start – think about joining link vault and adding some inbound links to your homepage. This can also boost rankings over time.

To Your Success …
Brian J

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