Getting out of the sandbox

[DanHorvat]

This is not a question but I want to tell you guys how I got out, I guess many of you are stuck in the same situation because of Matt Cutts and the rest of the intelectually challenged bunch at Google Inc.

My website was generating 112.000 errors due to a ; sign I left out of the PHP code in one module, and I suppose the site was also attacked in some way, probably with loads of bad links or something. Anyway, after a while traffic from Google dropped to 1% of the original one as the pages were no longer showing in the results.

It didn't change even when the site was error-free, because Google still considered those 112.000 pages important although they were no longer in the Sitemap for months.

I made sure the site was error-free and 404-free and made a new Sitemap, and transfered the site to a new domain. The site on that new domain was perfectly healthy, with no errors or bad links.

Now it was time to instruct the old domain to point to the new one with a 301 redirect. Since the sub-pages are totally different, I needed to redirect ALL pages to ONE page. This is how you do it in .htaccess:

RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www\.olddomain\.com$
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.newdomain.com/? [R=301,L]

As a result, I got 291.200 links pointing from olddomain.com to newdomain.com root. The redirect I used is also making sure there are no 404 errors whatsoever. Any link I've had to the site will point to the root of the new domain. Perfect.

In Google Webmaster Tools I told Google my site moved to a new domain.

Next day, traffic. The day after that, traffic, loads of it. The third day the all-time record was broken. I'm expecting it to fluctuate now and perhaps decrease for a while, but the fact that it started strong means the initial problem was successfully resolved.

I won't be making any suggestions that you guys should do what I did, I'm just talking about my isolated case and a specific scenario. It might or might not work in yours.

[Frank Benjamin]

Glad your site came back. Good job.

i had similar results, but all i did was simply change my site to a subdomain. Traffic and search ranking started coming back in no time. I wish I did it months before though instead of after my peak season. Oh well, now I am ready for next year.

Congrats on getting your site back!

[edgarf76]

Good Stuff! Question, how did you guys determine that you werein the sandbox in the first place?

[Frank Benjamin]

Good Stuff! Question, how did you guys determine that you werein the sandbox in the first place?

I was easy for me. After April 24th my traffic disappeared to pretty much zero. I was nowhere to be found in the SERPs. Obviously, I was penalized.

My site started coming back to life in August, but once I built some links (links from relevant sites) my ranking bottomed out again and my traffic died again. Since I moved to a subdomain, it has been stronger than ever.

BTW, I have another thread on here about my Penguin Recovery. I update it from time to time.

[edgarf76]

Thank You, would you mind sending the link to your penguin/panda thread please? My sties are new, one is 2 years old and the other is 6 months. I ran an analysis on market samuri on a website that is ranking on the first page of google and their website is not even a year old. Generally how is does it take to get a decent amount of seo traffic not ppc and social networking?

[anikkhl]

Good Stuff! Question, how did you guys determine that you werein the sandbox in the first place?

Hello edgarf76

You might also check the index status (your site is indexed or deindexed) following this method

Goto => Google.com
type => site:www(dot)yourdomainname.com (Don't write as "Dot", just use a "." instead)
Press => search

The result should show your home on the 1st position of the result. If it doesn't show, then you have to understand there is some problem and u might be sandboxed.

This process is mainly used to check the index status of your website. If they are deindexed and remain it like that for 1 week or so. then you might be in a big trouble.

Note: this technique doesn't apply to the new born sites, yet to get indexed

Thanks

[edgarf76]

Thank you, I am glad I did that, this is the first search result. Do you own www.myurl dot com?Get indexing and ranking data from Google. On the bottom is says getting indexed is easy with a link to webmaster tools. When I did it without the www dot it came up with my site. I go to webmaster tools a few times a week and it shows that i am indexed and the increase of pages increased over the year as I have added content. Any advise on what I could do? Perhaps the disavow tool is a good option? Any advise would help. Thank you

[anikkhl]

Thank you, I am glad I did that, this is the first search result. Do you own www.myurl dot com?Get indexing and ranking data from Google. On the bottom is says getting indexed is easy with a link to webmaster tools. When I did it without the www dot it came up with my site. I go to webmaster tools a few times a week and it shows that i am indexed and the increase of pages increased over the year as I have added content. Any advise on what I could do? Perhaps the disavow tool is a good option? Any advise would help. Thank you

Can u plz PM me your URL? I want to take a look at it if u permit.

Thanks

[Frank Benjamin]

Thank You, would you mind sending the link to your penguin/panda thread please? My sties are new, one is 2 years old and the other is 6 months. I ran an analysis on market samuri on a website that is ranking on the first page of google and their website is not even a year old. Generally how is does it take to get a decent amount of seo traffic not ppc and social networking?

Here is the link to my thread on my recovery: https://www.gpwa.org/forum/my-google...uy-209320.html

[solman]

It seams I have the same problem. A week ago my search queries dropped from 700 to 60-90.
I managed to move my old site to subdomain. In fact I copied it, so now I have 2 identical sites, one on the root domain and one on a subdomain.
However I am not sure what should I do next. Should I just add the subdomain site to Google webmasters tool, keep working on it and leave the old site or should i delete old site and tell google I have moved to a new domain?
Any suggestions are welcome. Thanks

[universal4]

See Dan's explanation about about doing a 301 redirect.

Having 2 domains with duplicate content will not help you.

Rick
Universal4

[Frank Benjamin]

I redirected the root to my new subdomain so that any links will still direct to pages on the subdomain. Any penalty will not transfer. Having a mirror of your site does you no good. I didn't do anything in WMT and my site is doing fine.

[edgarf76]

Your Search queries may be down because google just did their last manual panda update. From now on they are doing "roll out". You can check it out on the seo site I read http://www.seroundtable.com/google-panda-25-16506.html

[Frank Benjamin]

Only my one squeeze page dropped with the update, which I am not surprised, but it only dropped a couple spots. Otherwise Panda was kind to me.

Saw that post last night. There's a big Penguin update coming soon. That will tell a lot.

[xecutable]

The Panda refresh isn't fully active. More is coming on Monday

[solman]

Thanks for help. I did not intend to keep duplicate content, just wasn't sure what is the next step.
However, I redirected my root to a subdomain now. Will see what happens next.
BTW, my search queries dropped om march 7th, I can't see any panda update on that date.