The Sandbox Effect: Not a Nice Place to Play - What to Do while Stuck in the Sandbox
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If your website has just entered the Sandbox, it's best to not panic. Google has not imposed a penalty on your site. You already know that your site has been indexed by Google. Instead, it's simply a natural, if a somewhat bewildering and upsetting part, of Google's algorithm. It can be an especially bitter pill to swallow, if the site had entered the SERPs, highly ranked from the new site bonus effect.
Treat the Sandbox stay as an opportunity to improve your site. Add as much fresh content to your site as possible. In the long run, Google always rewards content. Larger sites that feature more content pages will always rank highly as well. A fatal error for your website would be to stop adding content while under the Sandbox damper. That can happen to you if you think that your site was penalized, or will never rank well for your most important keywords.
Use the time in the quicksand to add incoming links to your website. If you intend to employ a link exchange strategy, now is a good time to do it. Seek out sites that are related to the main theme and topics of your website for cooperative efforts. Link out to interesting and helpful sites for your own visitors and potential customers. Linking to good sites can help, in the longer term, toward turning your site into a hub or an authority site. Since you have little to lose in the SERPs, the filtered time is a great time to start.
Submit to the various Internet directories, including The Open Directory Project, better known as DMOZ. Seek out useful directories as good sources of one-way links, additional PageRank, and potential visitor traffic. Because of the time lag between directory submission and inclusion, the Sandbox time period is an ideal time for directory submissions. Since not having the directory links isn't hurting your site while it's in the Sandbox, adding them will help your site make tremendous leaps in the SERPs, once the filter has been removed.
Develop other promotional and marketing ideas for your website to raise and maintain traffic levels during your time in the sand. Both online and offline promotional techniques will provide much needed visitors while Google is providing very limited numbers. An added bonus from this concept is your marketing and promotional activities will continue to boost your website visitor traffic in the long run, even when your site leaves the sand trap.
Next: Keeping the Sand Out of Your Shoes >>
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