As some of you may already know for some months I am trying to build some Amazon niche site to see how things work with Amazon niche sites and also earn some money. I have started to focus on Amazon niche sites in March and since then I have managed to build three of them. For a while things went very good and one by one the sites started to rank for the keywords that I have chosen and everything was fine and according to plan.
I was constantly writhing new articles about product reviews and building links, with every week the traffic grew and I was higher and higher in the SERP. And suddenly the traffic and the ranking of the keywords dropped for hundreds of positions. My keywords went from first page to position 400 and the traffic went from 100 visitors a day to 3 visitors a day. Maybe for most of you with some experience in niche sites this is not strange and already had the same problem as me. I also suspect that this could happen and a lot of opinions and articles exist about Google Sandbox.
Google Sandbox
Google Sandbox is describing the exact thing that happen with my site, sandbox effect is well debated by the webmasters but never confirmed by Google. Usually new sites are stroke by the sandbox effect and especially the ones that focus on a keyword that has a lot of concurrence. A lot of suppositions are out there but I would not like to discourse more about them here. The sure thing is that something has happen with all three of my websites and is not pleasant at all.
The strange thing is that I have followed some well known blogger like Pat from Smartpassiveincome that has some interesting niche site duel and I never seen a drop like this in his sites. All the sites from the niche site duel all the sites are new and are focused on strong keywords. Also I have read some books that showed how to get on first page of Google in 45 days, which they did but that doesn’t has even a phrase about something like this. Sure I was also able to reach first page of Google in two months but then I was drown back. Below are some stats from Analytic to see exactly the decrease in the traffic:
How to Overcome Google Sandbox
A lot of time and effort was done to build that three niche sites and would not like more to see them rise again. Also on the internet a lot of theories of how to overcome Google Sandbox exist but not one of them fully sure. Below is a list with what other webmaster are saying about how to overcome Google Sandbox effect:
- Do nothing - believe it or not some of them are saying that you have to wait and the site will start to rank sooner or later.
- Move the domain - other are saying that if you will buy a new domain name and move everything on the new domain the effect will go and the new domain will have no problems.
- Build strong links – strong links are not that easy (cheep
) to find, without no doubt some strong links will fix the problem. I don’t have the necessary resources to build strong links and maybe this apply for the most of you. - Continue with what you usually do – meaning continuing to write articles and build links as you usually do. This method has more sens to me because is the most logic one and hopefully the ones that will bring the desired results.
Net Steps for me to Overcome Google Sandbox Effect
Thing aren’t easy with Google especially lately when a lot of changes are happening. For sure this will not bring me down and I will continue with the Amazon niche sites and also with writhing new articles on them and building links. In the next month I will focus more on only one to see what the results will be.
I will keep you updated with the new changes and hopefully I will manage to overcome Google Sandbox effect.
well the last method you mentioned is usually used by many of us to over come, because its our casual work and bloggers usually love to do it.
I had that happen to one of my sites but when I dug into analytics I found that one of my keyword serp ranks had dropped that day. It cut my traffic down to nothing though.
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The sandbox is nasty. I have plenty of experience with it. It tends to happen when you are link building like crazy, but your website isn’t really getting traffic that correlates with the rise in links. That has been my experience anyway.
I have a feeling that Google is paying attention to certain things about websites that people don’t realize. When link growth is not aligned with the rest of those factors then it triggers an alert that something is going on. So, do me a favor and click on over to my website so Google can see that I get traffic and not just links. I don’t want my brand new site sandboxed either.
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I have had the same experience when my site was dumped by google for half a month and luckily it came back. Meanwhile I submitted few articles to ezine and articlebase.
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Have you found a solution for this yet? I’ve heard of this phenomenon for quite some time now since it has been creating quite a buzz in the blogosphere.
I know it is difficult – but I would definitely recommend sitting tight and doing nothing for a while – it is perfectly normal for new site to vanish for a few weeks or even a few months – I would do nothing for 2 months and work on some other projects then come back to these.
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i Think we all have been kicked by google
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“i Think we all have been kicked by google” well said no doubt about it
I’ve never heard of the sandbox technique used by Google. Trying to figure out why Google would drop someone off of the search rankings is pretty time consuming. There are many factors to consider. Google is typically pretty fair with their rankings (in my experiences) and I assume if they drop you, you may have done something they don’t like… Don’t mess with Google
That’s terrible for you, I’m sorry to hear that you’ve been hit by Google’s Sandbox. I look forward to hearing back from you, and hope you make progress.
Keep the good work up, Dragos.
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It can be very worring the amount of power google has, especially when you need an income from your sites.
When i have had this in the past it normaly means i have been to agressive in link buiding, my ready is normally to slow right down and just have a add a few quality links. this normally fixes it.
Acting is always better than staying idle. If you want to avoid this type of thing with your niche sites in the future, use cloudflare or incapsula. Try to have different DNS for your sites. Google will not be able to penalize them at the same time.
Thanks for the info, I have already done this, now I am just waiting for the results.
That is good info, i didn’t think about that.
So did you get out of the sandbox yet? i used to think that the sandbox went away but I guess it hasn’t
I know how it feels , just go on with your sites.That is the spirit do not give up.Nice post.
Is there any way way to get out of this sandbox? I have tried with strong links and even resubmitted the sitemap but nothing much improved.
I guess the reason behind is that your 3 sites as you mentioned are made for amazon affiliates, maybe it’s the same thing which happened on MFA sites or made for adsense websites which are greatly affected by the Google Panda/Farmer update. Are you content that really unique? if not you need to exert more effort with this aspect.
-Vins
I think my blog is permanently sanboxed by google. I’m not getting listed and no new visitors to my blog. Will try this method.
A couple of my indexed pages have got into Google Sandox. I have stopped worrying about it, at least for now. All the new pages seem to be indexing without a problem.
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i think the easiest way is to send a couple of good backlinks, with a good PR (let’s say minimum 2) and there it is.. problem solved