Bucket and spade anyone?

[SEO Lady]

Thanks to faradaykeynes I've just realised a client is sandboxed.

I've never had a new client come to me with a sandbox issue before so I'm asking for help in understanding this further. The little I do know is that it's a kind of jail where you have to earn credibility to get yourself out of it.

Relevant dates:
Registered on: 13-Mar-2010

I've read a couple of articles 'sandbox case study' on Google, these were from 2011 and I was wondering if anything has changed a few years down the line, or if you guys n dolls can share with me your personal experience of a sandbox issue and the steps taken to overcome this?

 

[zigojacko]

The way to overcome it is to build great content and earn decent links because there is no such thing as a Google sandbox. There was an affect known as the sandbox back in 2005 or so but it's just a myth now. If Google aren't showing a website in their index then they think it's not worthy of being displayed for certain keywords. Simple as that.

 

[SEO Lady]

Ooh really - Cheers Zigo.

At present there is a duplicate content issue with dotcouk and dom sites with the naked domain and www residence - essentially 4 identical websites with the dev team dragging their heels to implement the 301's I've asked for.

The content is outstanding to be honest, there's shedloads of articles, good keyword density on every page, sitemaps and 297 indexed pages, alt tags on images and overall a clean looking site with great navigation.

I've been working with the client for just 2 weeks and targeting two long tail phrases rather than a 1 or 2 word keyphrase, so it's not hugely competitive.

• bespoke furniture design ideas
• bespoke furniture companies compare

There's still some on site stuff to be done as in H1 and H2 etc, but I have been working off site verifying in Google, Bing, etc, linking Google+ page, social media / YouTube and a few links.

I discovered early on that the dev team had added NOINDEX and NOFOLLOW which I stripped out, went into GWT linked Analytics and the correct property. I also submitted a Fetch As Google and submitted URL and all linked pages, the same in Bing. All fine.

Now, I'm not saying 'All hail the queen of SEO' but I always get results in Google after a day or two, even with a brand new domain. I'm confused why I can't find the site in Google in the first 15 pages. Additionally, the phrase 'A bad workman blames her tools' springs to mind but I think the lack of results is not down to the poor quality of my work - I think there is something amiss and I'm darned if I can put my finger on it.

 

[jdluckhurst]

After only 2 weeks I doubt that you would see many results. I would just go about making sure the onsite is water tight, and by this I mean everything! You mention keyword density - I would forget about this and just make sure the content reads really well....thinking keyword density is approaching the issue from the wrong angle. Get it out on social media and look to get mentions on other sites. Sometimes it takes a little longer than expected but as long as you go about it in the right fashion the results will come.

Good luck!

 

[UseYourWeb]

Check for other things like hidden content, hidden links in the footer, I've seen a hidden link in a footer with a full stop as the anchor text be the reason a site was placed in the secondary index regardless of on site changes, backlinks or anything else. Removed the hidden link and within days it was restored. Not saying that is the case on your site but worth looking into.

 

[UseYourWeb]

and just to confirm, the dev team removed the noindex and nofollow? was that from the header meta tag? if so, did they add/remove any crawl directives from the robots.txt file?

 

[UKSBD]

what's the site?

 

[SEO Lady]

Check for other things like hidden content, hidden links in the footer, I've seen a hidden link in a footer with a full stop as the anchor text be the reason a site was placed in the secondary index regardless of on site changes, backlinks or anything else. Removed the hidden link and within days it was restored. Not saying that is the case on your site but worth looking into.

- Thanks for the follow on comments, no there's nothing shady like white text on white etc, I was also awaiting on a few 301 redirects which were implemented shortly after I started the thread.

The site is now ranking both on backlinking profiles and also the homepage in Google SERPs.

I had a personal message from the client last weekend expressing his appreciaton - and I'd like to pass on thanks to everyone who contributed to this thread.