[I have a site that is almost 4 months old. It had been ranking for a number of keywords centered around product names. However, today I checked and I now find these pages are not ranked on the 1st page for these keywords but are on the very last page of results for the keyword in the SERPs. Other pages of the site are showing up. However, these are not pages that I had done any link building too. My link building strategy has been to write articles and blog commenting. I only started the blog commenting about a month ago. This has consisted of me making anywhere from 5 to 13 links a day on do-follow blogs. My question is has my site been sandboxed or is this just an initial fluctuation?]
There is no sandbox, it is just a myth.
We get at least one of these threads a week and most of the time it is just the temporary boost effect of QDF wearing off and your new web pages going to it’s currently earned position.
There are dozens of threads on this forum about QDF.
Your web page hasn’t yet earned that #5 position. It was temporarily boosted by QDF (the freshness factor), and now that that temporary boost has worn off, your page has gone to it’s truly earned ranking. It is just that simple.
Now you need to get busy earning the ranking that you desire by promoting your web pages.
That seems fairly typical of the usual pattern we see with QDF. The algorithm is dynamic with many different signals contributing to the ranking score. I have seen a similar pattern at least a thousand times before. It is nothing new nor unusual.
Here’s a brand new website just asking to be sandboxed by you:
No Sandbox | The Sandbox is Just a Myth!
Let’s see your sandboxing prowess!
For someone who refuses to acknowledge the sandbox and calls it “mythical”, he sure does try to skip around the test a lot.
Hell, using his rationale, he should do awesome in the SERPs with what I’m going to do to the domain.
Just another myth IMO, search engines do not recognize domain-level authority, only page-level authority.
If you kept up with Fish Randkin’s research you would already be aware that he backed off the claim of “domain authority” as a measurable influence in SERP ranking in favor of “page authority”. My own research has led me to believe there are no domain level signals used in SERP except to group results post query. If you have anything that suggests otherwise I would love to see the source.
In the interest of learning and sharing the knowledge I will register a new domain, set up a new hosting account and create yet another website so you cannot hide behind the notion of “domain authority”. I will even research the domain to be sure that it was not previously registered, we wouldn’t want any latent “domain authority” skewing the results.
