Being in the sandbox

It would appear my site has been put in Google’s sandbox.

This has not happened to me for a long time – but then I haven’t worked on a completely new site for a little while. The key with new sites is to take things very slowly at first, trying to catch peoples’ attention and thus naturally obtaining links.

This domain is around 4 months old, so obviously hasn’t gained much trust yet. Though I‘ve tried to take things slowly and catch some attention by posting thoughtful comments on blogs, I have run into some trouble. This is mainly because a few blogs have distributed the comment (and therefore the link) across the site’s pages, in the ‘recent comments’ section. This has meant that my site has gained a huge percentage of its links within the last couple of weeks.

I guess many would class this as a rookie mistake!

However, I have seen many sites get by despite this – I think the issue is more sensitive depending on the industry/subject the site represents. Obviously SEO-focused sites loom large on Google’s spam radar.

So how will I get out of the sandbox?

Well I’ve submitted a reconsideration request outlining the trouble I’ve run into and listing the main culprit for my massive acquisition of links. I’ve also stated that I will now focus on getting some more decent content on the site, cutting down on the comment marketing.

So that’s what I’m going to do. Gradually build my content and focus onsite rather than onsite. This is the strategy I recommend for every new site – I think I just got a little too involved in putting my points of view across on blogs across the web!

The conclusion: expect to see more posts on here soon!

Tags: Google, Link building, Sandbox, SEO

This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 10th, 2010 at 9:35 pm and is filed under Google, SEO. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.