Sandbox without building links?

addz123 · Sep 19, 2012

Hi,

I developed this site a couple of months ago:

http://www.bettingsites.org.uk

It was ranking page3-4 without any links once I put the content up.

I had since built literally 1-2 links (with brand.com anchor) and it disappeared from the SERPs for that keyword.

I was just wondering if it's possible to get sandboxed without building any links?

I've since built a 2-3 more links but this all started before that.

Something else that I noticed is that I was ranking page 1 on Bing.com. Then when I lost my rankings in Google, Bing followed suit (I have a very strong suspicion that Bing basically copies Google or uses their ranking results as a metric of site quality - which affects rankings almost immediately once you lose rankings in Google.

I seem to appear back on page 1 on Bing, but not Google. I have a feeling it could have been some page optimisation filter I tripped (tried toning down keywords but site is cached over a week ago so might need to wait a while for that).

Any other ideas? For all I know Google might also have released an update lowering rankings for org.uk domains. I'm literally ranking no where for main keyword so there was something hurting my site. FYI I think you can see cache to see how page looked before I attempted to de-optimise it.

kate-brownhill · Sep 19, 2012

Google is very up and down at the moment (http://www.webmasterworld.com/google/4496825.htm). Some of our sites have also displayed this exact behaviours but, if left alone (See recent Google Patent discussion) they come back to previous positions. If you are expecting action and reaction type behaviour from Google these days then you are going to be disappointed. Best advice would be continue to build good quality links at a very slow but consistent pace. Avoid any loaded anchors at this stage.

Blossom · Sep 19, 2012

When did you add the affiliate links? At the same time as the content or after?

kate-brownhill · Sep 19, 2012

Blossom said:
When did you add the affiliate links? At the same time as the content or after?

Good point. Also, how long has it been since it dropped from the serps? A day or two or longer now?

addz123 · Sep 19, 2012

That's a good point.

I added the affiliate links after the content. I honestly can't remember the exact dates of adding aff links/losing SERPs.

The thing is, while it could be related, I have built 15+ sites using the exact same theme/design/affiliate links and never had an issue like this. I also don't believe that google is penalising sites just because they have affiliate links on them (it is more related to quality).

I think it's been 2+ weeks since it dropped from the SERPs - it was only one keyword "betting sites" I was monitoring as I don't expect the inner pages to be ranking or anything.

I've been adding news content every week and have all the contact/tos/privacy in place as you can see.

Edit: It's one-off cases like this that really incentivise me to start using keyword ranking software that can track my rankings over a period of time. That at least makes it easier to spot ranking changes, assess timing and pinpoint the reason.

addz123 · Sep 19, 2012

I just searched for my last 4 news article titles and my site doesn't appear anywhere.

I also took a snippet of my homepage and that doesn't return my site either in google.

Blossom · Sep 19, 2012

You've definitely tripped a filter. The domain name still appears top in Google.

I would start by nofollowing your affiliate links.

addz123 · Sep 19, 2012

I think they're already no-followed.

Blossom · Sep 19, 2012

Looking at your code, some are and some aren't. Also, I don't seem to be able to see some of them on the page :S Not sure if they're accidentally hidden - don't have time to look properly unfortunately!