Finally Out Of The Sand Box

[Think Big]

just logged on to my site and saw that I know have a PR of 2 for my blog site. Its weird though because I haven done much link trading yet because I'm waiting to figure a few more things out before I start trading a ton of links with people. I know some say that PR doesnt mean any thing but the jury is out on that theory for me. i can say that I'm stating to get alot of SE traffic from google. although Im not getting much from yahoo.

just wanted to say thanks for all the help everybody. I'm going to keep at it until i have a pr of 10 and an alexa of 2

[phuckbunny]

Well done.

I'm no SEO mistress by FAR but I have been coming to the conclusion that the whole sandbox thing is a myth. I put up a couple of new blogs recently and one got indexed immediately and is getting fine SE traffic for a new site, while another one is floundering like mad.

I tend to think this has to do with the architecture of the site/blog theme as opposed to sandbox.

[SharkFace]

I think SEO is a bit like throwing a dart at grains of sand. Google is the dart, your site is one of the grains of sand.
It doesn't really matter how much or how little you optimise and quite frankly it doesn't matter whether you are PR5 or PR1 the results are the same.

The sandbox is a myth created by SEO's so they can explain why a clients site is not listed in Google.

As far as I am concerned their are a couple of things you can do to sway the big G into visiting more often (although this certainly isn't a guarentee).

1. When you first create your site update daily, even several times daily. Do this for at least 3 months. This will get those Googlebots wanting to visit your site more often.. Bots always visit regular with new sites if they don't see change they start to drop from seconds to minutes to hours to days and finally months.
I can usually see a new post on my blog listed in Google within seconds. In fact it's almost listed before I press publish it's that quick.

2. After the initial 3 month blogathon you can update less frequently. But this should still be at least twice a week although I doubt your rankings would drop significantly if you didn't.

3. Don't trade links. Let people link to you naturally ( this is a theory based purely on SEO and ranking well in Google. Of course you should link if you want traffic except SE traffic.

4. Posts need to be interesting, informative and make people want to stick around for several minutes.

That's all.

[phuckbunny]

What about linking between your own sites? Good/bad/sucks? I hear mixed opinions about this.

[SharkFace]

I don't interlink, I believe it harms you. I would only put one link up just to get the initial Google visit and no more.

I know I sound like some crazy fool that does everything the wrong way round but (in SEO terms) this works for me.

[balls_deep]

Originally posted by phuckbunny
What about linking between your own sites? Good/bad/sucks? I hear mixed opinions about this.

if it's relevant to your niche, why not use the traffic?

i'm all for linking if its relevant

[Think Big]

that was going to be my next question about interlinking. I have 10 domains on the back burner that i want to get up and running and i was wondering if i should interlink the sites. Ive heard that people change the registered name of the domain and get a separate hosting company and the whole nine yards. so google yahoo ect wont know there together and give them maximum credit for the links? Is this true or just a rumor?
i set up a few sensual writer blogs for 1 way links and im working on setting up a thumblogger site as well as soon as I figure out how to use the program. i have i link to 1 other site of mine and 8 a-b-c links. i did update the blog daily and the bots do love the daily updates. that much i know. so ill just see how it goes. traffic is picking up but its not great by a long shot. Im under the same impression Bill has and thats to link link and link some for traffic.

[phuckbunny]

Good question. Free hosted blogs might be a good way to get links in and traffic, but how much, really and how do you make sure they work to your benefit? I've only got a couple of those and they also fluctuate wildly - one gets 300 uniques without an update in a year, another was shot in the cradle and has 20 hits a day.

[razor]

Originally posted by balls_deep
if it's relevant to your niche, why not use the traffic?

i'm all for linking if its relevant

Definately I think where you will pick up problems with Google is if you have a recipe site and you linked to another one of your sites about cars feor example - not really relevant and doesn't add value.

If you had a site focusing on credit card/mortgages and you linked to another site featuring financial advisors its relevant and useful

[mynameisjim]

Well, building junk sites for links will give you junk links.

So for example, if you build ten thumblogger blogs but don't get links to them, then just link out, those are pretty useless links with no juice and not really worth the effort of building the blog in the first place.

Remember, the quality of the link is very important.

As for interlinking, I've said this a million times. It's not wrong or bad. The problem is that it can be MISUNDERSTOOD by the algo as a scheme to pass PR among common sites. If you just run a few sites and link each other in the sidebar, it's no big deal. If you have a really large network, are buying links and posts and start interlinking, you can get sloppy and get into trouble.

But for a few sites, it's no big deal probably.

At least that's my opinion. Just add it to your mix and come to your own conclusion.

[BodaciousBJ]

How did you determine your page rank?

I have been doing my blog for approximately two months, and I post twice a week. I heard it takes three to six months to get out of the box.

[NookieNotes]

Well, congrats. I am just finishing up moving my blog to a permanent wordpress addy, and looking forward to making it all happen.

Luckily, I have lot of incoming link options, thanks to networking.

[Hammer]

The sandbox is not a myth and I don't agree that PR is totally worthless when you look at the big picture. The sandbox has been discussed and explained many times by Matt Cutts from Google.

I also dont' think interlinking harms you if you do it in a logical way. Any time I launch a new site I link to other of my sites that are relevant and I go add links on those sites to the new site. Google has no problem with owners of sites linking those sites together as long as it's not being done in an obvious attempt to circumvent the system.

Franky I think many of you spend far too much time looking for shortcuts and ways to cheat the system instead of working on things that can actually work and not get you into trouble.