Of course we know that Google tweaks its algorithm most days. The reality is that most of these tweaks go unnoticed and have little effect in regards to rankings. This year we have already seen major changes to the Google algorithm during Feb, late April and June. Google has admitted that that in regards to long tail search queries they have indeed changed their algorithm. Many affiliates are reporting other problems in regards to getting new sites indexed plus even perhaps a new extended sandbox.
New sites targeting competitive key phrases have been receiving a penalty for a few years. Google freely admits that this is the case, as have webmasters, whom named this penalty, the Google Sandbox. I have experienced the Google Sandbox many times with new sites. I would launch a new site adding a few quality links which would give the site a decent ranking. If the site was targeting competitive key phrases I could guarantee that the site would lose its obtained ranking within 2 to 4 weeks. In my opinion there were several factors which determined how long the site would be “sandboxed”. Some of the factors included:
Back Links Quality
Back Links Quantity
Back Links Age
The Competitiveness of the Key Phrases Targeted
Up until this year I found that sites targeting uncompetitive key phrases were not sandboxed or if sandboxed were quickly returned to the main index. Competitive key phrases, from my experiences were sandboxed for as little as 2 weeks up to 6 months. It seemed clear to many that part of Google’s algorithm did include a trust rank.
Many webmaster realised the above factors were true with many developing methods to bypass the Google Sandbox. I also practised these methods with great success. This year though things changed!
After the February Google algorithm update and more so after the May Day Google Long Tail Google update many webmasters were reported that they were struggling to get new sites indexed. Many webmasters also reported that new site’s pages that did get indexed were receiving very little long tail traffic. To many it seemed clear that the Google Sandboxed had been extended. Perhaps extra conditions had been added to Google’s Trust Rank?
From early March 2010 I tested others claims by launching new sites. I will say that I was amazed to encounter the same problems others were reporting. I too found that my new sites were taking longer to be indexed plus when pages were indexed long tail traffic was nonexistent. I do though love a challenge so I started to find ways to bypass the new Google Sandbox or should I say to increase my new sites Trust Ranking.
After nearly 4 months of testing I’m certain that Google has extended the so called Sandbox. I strongly believe that part of the Google algorithm does include a Trust Rank. Webmaster will to have to adapt to the algorithm changes. Those in the know will know that there is more to link building that simply building links with a high page rank. It seems clear to me that some sites can have a high trust rank even though they have no or little page rank.
Let’s completely forget about page rank for the moment and think about trust rank. It is common knowledge that good sites rarely links to bad sites although bad sites will link to good sites. Could it be possible that some sites have a high trust rank so become part of a seed set feeding Trust Rank to other sites? Could it also be possible that some high PR sites could now be flagged by Google as simply spam sites (low trust rank)? Perhaps after the next Google Page Rank update we will see sites increase Page Rank but as they still have a low Trust Rank they still will struggle to obtain decent long tail traffic from Google? Perhaps new sites simply need to increase their trust rank?
The next Google Page Rank update is expected within the next week or two. Perhaps then we will have a better understanding of what is happening.
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