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Reduce Sandbox Length by Timing your Backlinks

Reduce Sandbox Length by Timing your Backlinks

What is Sandboxing?

Definition: When you build links to a site and you see little to no ranking benefit.

Back around mid-2014, we started to see a sandboxing effect on new domains that had been recently registered.

Before that time, you used to be able to register a new domain, build some backlinks to it, and within 5 days it could potentially be on page 1.  Now a days, SEOs are reporting sandbox periods of 3-6 months long.

People have been discussing various ways to beat the sandbox and reduce the time it takes to rank.  In general, the most widespread theory is that you want to create a viral effect.

Here’s my recipe for sandbox reduction, and the results I’ve gotten by using it…

anti-sandbox

  1. Social Fortress – For most “real” businesses, a website’s first links are usually from social websites.  Once their site is made, a business naturally goes out to brand itself on Facebook, Twitter, G+, etc.  This social fortress should constitute the first links that you create to your website.
  2. Business Citations – After social profiles are created, a typical business would like to make sure potential customers can find them in local and industry-specific directories.  Leverage directories like these to build free but natural links to your homepage.
  3. Social Signals – After that, create a social signal campaign to drip out 50-200 Facebook shares, Twitter tweets, etc over the next 30 days.  This is where the virality comes from.  To generate signals, I use SEO Butler’s 200 signals package, namely for their ease of use, delivery of quality signals, and repeatedly good results.  Use coupon code “DIGGITY10” for 10% off.
  4. Guest Posts – Now that the stage is set, it’s a safe time to build links.  I stick to quality guest posts from websites with traffic in this beginning phase.  Why?  Because in the natural course of the internet, most new links are created on brand new pages.  Similar to how guest posts are created.  The name of the game is to look as natural as possible.

link building button

Results

Here are the results of two separate tests running the sequence listed above.

tc1

tc2

Of course, there are various techniques people use to skate around the sandbox, but this is what I use and it seems to be working quite well, and quite consistently.  Give it a shot and share your results as well.

 

Matt-Author-Img

Article by

Matt Diggity

Matt is the founder of Diggity Marketing, LeadSpring, The Search Initiative, The Affiliate Lab, and the Chiang Mai SEO Conference. He actually does SEO too.

163 thoughts on “Reduce Sandbox Length by Timing your Backlinks”

  1. After the press release, should I point FCS links towards the press release or the money site? or both? Thanks for the amazing article!

      1. Hi,

        What are these social signals as mentioned on the 3rd point? Is it Web 2.0 links getting created with help of FCS Networker or are something else?

        Thanks,
        Mayank

        1. Hi Mayank,

          You can use social signals created by FCS or a one time burst of social signals from signals.ninja for example.

      2. Hi Matt,

        So I started two blogs simultaneously, watched a video about getting out of the sandbox which made reference of social signals blast without a specific number, with less idea on this and the drip feed which you mentioned, I hooped into fiverr and bought a 5000 social signal burst.

        Fortunately, it helped my first site out of the sandbox in less than a month which is now ranking for some terms, but the second is still stuck in the sandbox stage.

        After reading and watching some videos you made, got to discover that this was quite a huge number of signal I bought and it wasn’t done the right way, now am confused as well as afraid.

        1. If the already purchased signal is bad for the websites which could trigger something bad in the future.

        2. If I should go ahead to purchase a signal drip from PBNbutler to assist the second website out of the sandbox.

        BTW: This is the second month of creating the websites.

        1. Social signals usually aren’t a make-or-break factor that is going to determine if a site will take off or not.  I’d look for other clues.

  2. Hi there,
    I was going over pbnbutler site. They are offering small package:

    Total 100 Signals
    Facebook Signals: 50
    Twitter Shares: 30
    Google +1’s : 20
    10 day dripfeed

    They also offer a 300 social signals package:

    Total 300 Signals
    Facebook Signals: 150
    Twitter Shares: 90
    Google +1’s : 60
    20 days dripfeed

    As you had mentioned to do less signals, like 50 and dripfeed over 30 days, these packages are not offering. Socials.ninja also does 100 signals minimum and that dripfeeds over 10 days. I have a brand new site, 3 days old. Should I buy one of the above packages which dripfeeds over 10 days? Or would that be a lot and riskier? Site is yet to be indexed in google. I haven’t put any PBN links yet towards the new domain.

    1. Considering your situation, I’d wait a few weeks. Definitely wait for indexing. After that, personally I prefer FCS for the ability to drop a smaller amount of signals. However, a burst of 100 probably won’t hurt.

  3. Interested to see how these sites are performing now that it’s a few months on Matt? I’ve got a similar process but the main issue to overcome with the sandbox is not so much breaking into page 2 through 8 within a month which can be done easily enough, it’s more breaking onto page 1 (for main target keywords) within the first few months that’s the issue. There are some exceptions and some workarounds to get initial traffic, but yet to see anyone with a method to consistently reach page 1 in advance of 4 months consistently with brand new domains.

    1. Hey Greg, here’s the latest site that I’ve used this technique on to get out of the sandbox and then continued on my my in-house formula for ranking. The site was born on May 24, 2015. Total search volume for these three keywords is ~120k/month. Affiliate site. Niche: Weight loss. https://diggitymarketing.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/escaping-sandbox-to-page-1.png.

  4. Nice post matt! Any chance you can show us how you are using fcs networker to create social signals for your website? Also, do you do any tiered link building? Domain stacking?

    1. Hey Nick. A full FCS Networker tutorial will take a bit too much than my bandwidth allows for now. But in a nutshell, it’s really simple. Create accounts everyday on all the social sharing platforms FSC covers (Twitter, etc). Then drip them as slow as possible to the money site: perhaps 1-2 signals per day depending on your link velocity. About domain stacking: https://diggitymarketing.com/trust-tiering-stacking-da-to-increase-site-trust/

      1. Awesome, awesome post. For these FCS social accounts, these are used one time and then thrown away? The social accounts such as twitter, dont have followers or anything?

      2. It’s a shame that FCS’ list of social properties that actually stick has diminished to nearly nothing. You can reg 100 accounts, but in the end, you may only get half a dozen links that stuck. It was a decent tool back in the day. I may need to find an alternative for the social stuff.

    1. Hey Ayush, I can’t imagine anything that costs $5 would be safe for a money site. Go with one of the more reputable PR vendors.

  5. Hey, Matt.

    This is an awesome post by the way.

    I had quick question for you. I’m about to 301 a site that is ranking on #1 for a keyword to an expired domain that has the clone of the original. (Reason why is due to legal reasons). Do you know how long it would take for the new expired domain to raise to the original spot?

    Would it also hit a sandbox?

    What would you do to make sure it rises fast?

    1. 301 works, but you need to do your due dilligence to make sure the domain you’re 301’ing is clean and will cause a ranking increase.

  6. Hey Matt, im reading this article for 5th time now, and im going to test it on few of brand new sites. Do you have a reliable press release provider or a service that you can recommend ?

  7. Hi Matt Nice sharing, i have a site with PR5 DA29, i don’t know whether that’s been Sandboxed or Deindexed i have two sites with same situation but i see my recent post published links in Bing and Yahoo. this is my site >>> cwin field padd ock . com <<< without space. i am looking for a solution. I must mention it too that i purchased this domain it was expired domain. Kindly Check this site and suggest me the solution for it so that it works fine and get indexed easily.

    Thanks

    Junaid Iqbal

    1. Yep. That’s an old tactic that still works. Be careful with the expired domain though. You want to be 100% sure of its history. The easiest thing to do is go out and buy like 10 branded domain names in the niche you’re in. Weightlosspros.com, Forgetthefat.com, etc. Get them hosted and install wordpress. Then you’re aging these domains for use whenever you see fit.

  8. I see you have a Local SEO graph…but your method does not have citations?

    Would you swap out Press Releases for citations for Local sites or just add citations and keep Press Releases?

    1. The purpose of scheduling links like this is to simulate a viral effect, which helps to bring a site out of the sandbox quickly. Citations are great, but they don’t help for this purpose.

  9. Hello Matt! Awesome info on your blog,I have a few question for you about sandbox.
    I bought a parked domain , to use for my money site.The domain it’s 8 years old ,but with no blacklinks history, in this case I have chance to get hit by sandbox ?

    thank you !

  10. Matt – This was a great post and I like how simple, yet effective, your approach is. Will be incorporating some of this for our in-house ranking formula. Thanks for sharing.

  11. Hey Matt, you mentioned you prefer FCS for the task of slow dripping the social signals, does FCS also support G +1s? if not, what is your preferred way of dripping those?

  12. Matt, you have just explained to this newb why I nearly gave up on SEO and almost drove myself mad trying to rank a newly created hand reg. I wrote high quality content (19 articles) reached out for quality links did every SEO thing we are advised to do and tried no tricks and yet not one of my keywords ranked anywhere on google. I had never heard of this “sandbox” . I launched in May 2015 and it’s only since mid September that I am now finally starting to rank, (I had given up working on the site as an abject failure) now I know why it didn’t rank. Feel pretty sick actually and a bit cheated by googs. 🙂

  13. Hi Matt,

    Loved the article,going to apply this on brand new site.

    I also sent you email here : [email protected]

    Please provide me too a reliable press release provider or anyone you can recommend.

    Thanks!

  14. Hey Matt,
    For ranking new local sites, will you continue dripping social signals and PBN links until you are ranking 1st-3rd on page one?

  15. Hmm strange but this strategy does not work for my newest site. After 1,5 month I see my main keywords not in top 1000 but it ranks on 2nd page for longtails.. Should I just keep doing and stick to this strategy right ?
    Thanks Matt!

    1. This technique has a good chance of getting you out of the sandbox quickly, but it depends a lot on many other factors, such as your onsite SEO, quality of social signals, PBN links, etc. If it were my site, I’d start taking a look at the onsite SEO. If I didn’t rank higher than page 10 for the main keyword (even before links), that’s where I’d look.

  16. Hi Matt,

    can you please recommend some good PR providers/services that you are using?
    Previously I have used Fiverr gigs for this. Here’s an example report I usually get from high-rated sellers (sites only):

    https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/43768417/Fiverr-PR-sites-report.png

    again, you provide them with the actual press release and for $5 they will just do the submission.

    Many sellers on IM forums do exactly the same submission , but for $50-60, however they include the PR writing in the price, anyway still that leaves a lot of margin there 🙂

    I assume you use something of better quality?

    Thanks!

  17. Hi, Matt

    Regarding the google sandbox, is it page specific? Meaning if you create a new page, that page might be subjected to the sandbox even if that page is on an aged domain?

    I has tested this on 3 expired domains with sold metrics and they all did the same exact process:

    1) Once the new page was created and new links were added (about 10 a day) the site would spike for all keywords for about 5 days.

    2) Then go back to were it was (in the hundreds) even though the domains are not new.

    Which leads be to believe that the sandbox might be page specific as opposed to domain specific.

    Have you noticed this as well?

    1. That hasn’t been my experience at all. If a domain is healthy, new pages have no sandbox effect.

  18. Great share, I have few questions, do you fire press release before your site is indexed or this is something you do 1 day after it indexed ? Also do you fire GSA or something like that on these press releases ? Do you add pbn links during your social campgain or after it’s done ? If you are so kind I would like to know where you get your press releases from, I’m using SpinePR from market source, it’s good, but maybe you know someone better 😛 Thanks in advance and keep up good work:)

    1. The press release comes after you index both your site and your social fortress.
      Ideally after you’ve dripped a few socials and links as well.
      Never GSA at Tier 2.
      PBN links continue forever.
      I’m currently shopping for a good press release provider.

  19. So I just built some Rank and Rent sites, do you create Social Media for those pages, or just use other Social Media accounts to refer to those websites? Thanks for the great information!

  20. Hi Matt!

    I’ve been wanting to ask you this for a long time, but for some weird reason I’ve always forgot:

    Once you have build your Social Fortress (Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, etc), how do you manage it?

    1. Do you set it and forget about it
    2. Do you automate it so each time you create a new post it gets posted on all your Fortress properties? (if so, how do you do that?)
    3. You manually go once in a while, log in into the properties, and post/interact with others.

    I’m thinking if you have like 20 Money Sites, you’re going to end up with 20 different Facebooks, 20 different Twitters, etc, etc… How do you manage that once the accounts are built?

    Thank you

  21. Hi,

    when creating your social fortress, do you use different facebook accounts for the different money sites or are all facebook sites for all the different money sites created with one and the same facebook account?

    1. I use the same Facebook account. As of today, there’s no way to “pierce through” a FB page and see who it’s owner is.

  22. I saw you mention signals.ninja. Do you just use the home page url for the social signals, or should I use a specific blog post?

    1. Homepage is what you want to target since that’s the page that naturally pulls the most social signals.

  23. Hey Matt.
    If I think I “might” be working on certain niches in only 10 months from now, should I be creating “pre-emptive” sites now, to get past the sandbox? How much does Google need to see on the site for this to work?

  24. Thanks Matt for the post, I consider about Business Directory instead of Press Release. Are both of them the same to reduce sandbox Length?

  25. Hey Matt,

    Great article, I am following through step by step.

    My money sites are in non-English language. Most Press Release services are in English, or only accept PRs in English written in English, I think btu I may be wrong.

    My question is;
    – Does the language of the PR matter?

    Thanks!
    Fredrik

    1. It’s always best to have linking content in the same language of your site. Better but not necessary.

  26. Hi Matt,

    Firstly thank you for the In-depth blogpost.

    What are your recent sandbox experiences, considering the article is a year old?

    Are you seeing similar patterns after following the above link timeline, like sites ranking within a month or two?

    Thanks.

      1. I mean what are your recent experiences getting new websites ranked ?

        Slower than last year or pretty much the same ?

  27. Hello Matt,

    What do you think about getting an expiring domain, that is old like 5-15 years, but got no backlinks and anchor text at all and also is clean via Wayback machine. That way we got age since expiring domains keep their age while expired domains reset, and I believe on that way we can bypass sandbox too, since let’s say I am in health industry and I registered previously domain in technology which also got anchor text related to technology that would be hit and miss, but like this we just got pure age and no backlinks and anchor text at all which means it should work. What do you think?

    1. Despite the logic that this would work, as a tactic is just doesn’t have that much consistency. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t.

  28. Many seo gurus say to post content. Frequently without making any backlinks for 1-1.5 months. And then start with branded links.
    Does this strategy works???

  29. Is it ok to use google analytics on the target site from the first day of it creation? Buy 10-20 links from news sites instead of use press realise, would have the same effecst?

    P.S. Sorry for poor english, i tried to do my best:)

      1. Does that mean you also avoid search console on money sites? Is it paranoia or have you seen negative effects of using Google tools on money sites?
        I’ve found the data from search console to be really valuable, like using ctrs to see which titles and metas need to be optimized more.
        If you don’t use search console have you found any other tools of getting the same data?

        1. I don’t rely on tools too much and generally avoid Google tools due to likely unfounded paranoia.

  30. Hey Matt,

    I bought a Press release from Konkor. I chose the one with the best reviews.
    I have gotten a lot of links from sites with TF5 for example with a couple of thousand referring domains.

    Do you think these type of links will harm my site?

  31. Is this too aggressive to start the back link building? Or is this more once you’re on page 2-4? In your example, https://diggitymarketing.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/escaping-sandbox-to-page-1.png, it looks like you used it once you started to show rankings in page 10 then the rankings shot up.

    Thanks for the content Matt!

  32. If a site is live, indexed but nothing has happened with it for 3-4 months (been left dormant), will it still be subject to sandbox or will it now be ready to be fired up? Asking because I am trying to decide if I need to buy a site with history (client timescale is tight)..

    1. This is essentially what I do to completely avoid sandbox. If I know I’m going into a niche eventually, I’ll register a bunch of branded domains, host them, and index them with some basic content. Let them sit, then they’re good to go when I’m ready to start.

  33. Tom Tuttle from Tacoma

    Is there an alternative to a Press Release? Due to the nature of our niche we don’t want to attract any attention from the Trademark owner.

  34. Hey Matt,

    Thanks for the sharing very much. I’ve read the article for several times. I’m your fans at the beginning of this blog.

    Recently one of my B2B site should be in sandbox. The domain was registered and built on December. 25 pages indexed. FB/LD social page indexed well, and I runned ads to get social signs for some posts. It got 3 guest post links (very strong niche-related. Brand anchors. Acutally, 2 of them should rock the site enter page 1). But only one main keyword ranking on 50+. I didn’t find any onpage issue according your guide doc.

    So I guess it should be in sandbox. Do you think I should buy PR for it to out sandbox now? Or is there any point I implement wrong so that it has been in sandbox for 5 monthes?

    Sorry for bothering you. I thought I should buy coaching from you. But the waiting list is too long.

    Looking forward your reply. Thank you very much!

    1. Sorry Vincent. I’d really need to take a close look at your site to be able to diagnose something like this.

  35. Do you think so many PR links might cause black sheep principle which I remember you mentioned on another post?

      1. Hey Matt,
        I’m in the same corner. So this anti-sandbox method is not available in smaller niche, which I mean every results on 1st serp has around 20-30 backlinks, right?
        If so, how should small niche anti sandbox?
        Thanks, Matt!

  36. Hey Matt you talk about giving 1-2 pbn links weekly but what about anchor text it should be exact match or partial match?

  37. Hey Matt,

    I was wondering if the press release is really necessary? Can you pull off the same results or similar with just social shares and PBN links? I don’t mind if the sandbox takes 31 days instead of 24 days, for example. I feel like having 100-200 nofollow links from a press release will make my backlink profile kinda spammy?

    Thanks for this article, super helpful. Haven’t read anything like this on the internet.

  38. Hi Matt, this is one of the few SEO blogs I trust with data-driven conclusions. One thing that puzzles me – if press releases are nofollow, why do they matter? I don’t understand the use of nofollow links for both pillowing and sandboxes – aren’t nofollow links ignored by Google? Or are they not? Would something like blog commenting with your name/brand achieve the same thing – a large number of branded nofollow backlinks (of course, pick relevant and moderated sites).

      1. That’s the part that bugs me. I always assume Google is smart, and counting anchors separately by dofollow status seems trivial. Like why ignore dofollow for one aspect of SERPs but not others (albeit indirect, such as anchor distribution penalties)? I suppose Google selects topical relevancy and position as separate algorithmic steps, or something to that effect?

        Oh well, thanks for your reply!

  39. Hi Matt, my site has been in sandbox for over 4 months since it was published. It has 3 social profiles, facebook/twitter/linkedin, indexed well. Do you think now it’s still available to implement the step 2-4 to make it out of sandbox asap? Thanks, Matt!

  40. hi there, i’m quite new to these strategies but i’m trying to launch my fisrt amazon affiliate site in short. And here comes my question. do i need to have all my planned contents online when i release the site? or do i need to publish them step by step, while getting the site indexed??

    thanks

    1. I’d at least have a baseline site of a minimum amount of main content and supporting content before trying to rank it.

  41. Hi Matt – great article (and great Daryl interview BTW – just watched that). I had a velocity question around inner pages.

    We are ranking #1 for a regional site, and are creating inner pages for other cities. With no backlinks many smaller city pages are ranking on page 1 or 2 right off.

    My question is if we want to rank all those inner pages higher, do we consider velocity to each inner page at 1-2 per week with supporting social signals? Or do we still stay with 1-2 links toward the domain in general and just point the 1-2 links per week at various inner pages?

    1. Depends what kind of links we’re talking about and the age of your site, and 100 other factors. But, in general, if you’re hitting any page with a high velocity of links that page needs socials.

  42. Hey Matt, you said you like to “drip out about 50 signals over 30 days”. PBN Butler’s smallest package is 200 signals dripped over 10 days. How do you make this work? Thanks!

  43. Hey Matt, Great article though i have a question.
    Can a site come into sandbox second time.My site got fred hit and now i have did everything possibly i could do but no ranking changes.I redirected the page but not result.Keywords is not even getting one spot up or down.
    Would you be kind enough to have a look at what’s wrong or what should i do ?

    Thanks

  44. Hey Matt,
    Your blog is so F* awesome. I am reading every-single-post and some comments/answers.

    Do you think I should do this technique to get out of the sandbox when my website is almost 5 months old? I made some high quality links to homepage and posts (not many but with quality), and i’ve seen no ranking improvement whatsoever.

    Thank you!
    (Loved your resource videos!)

    1. Thanks! You could give it a try. Either you’re sandboxed or your links might not be as quality (or powerful) as you thought though.

      1. Should I simulate traffic too? Since no one will “share” without traffic? Like this: Social Fortress -> PR -> Traffic -> Social Signals -> Links.

  45. Hi Matt,
    Matt, I just subscribed to your newsletter and looking forward to all the goodies.
    In the mean time I have a question.
    My non English business website was doing great for a while , reaching top3 results in 1-3 months after I started working on it but then past month Serps declined, to be currently stuck on the 1/2 page.
    Two things happen. Lack of Social campaign ( only did two paid on FB ) and 2nd, I have 301 redirected previous Domain ( which use to represent same business, but replaced due to bus name change). Old domain had couple of thousand BL btw.
    I am thinking I did too many BL without any substantial Social in between etc. Plus the 301 which added all those BL fairly quickly.
    Would it make sense to remove 301 and all new BL and start all over?
    I mean if this was just an algo holding me down I would think it may work to start over.
    Or should I keep going and from this point apply the backlink blueprint you have shared.
    The main problem is I have used 3/4 of my well build PBN and would not want it go to waste if possible. Hope you can give me something to go by. thanks!

    1. Too many variables going on to narrow it down to this, or to make me feel comfortable on making a big business decision like this for you.

  46. Hi Matt,
    Had a few questions, please.
    1. This article was written in 2015, is it still good in 2017.
    2. When you send social signals do you do it to just the home page or all the pages/posts?
    3. Are the Press Releases only to the home page or all pages/posts?
    Thanks!

    1. 1) Yes
      2) Any page getting a high velocity of links
      3) Homepage and maybe an inner page. Use HQ press release.

  47. Hi Matt. How many articles would be a good benchmark for a niche site before ranking it? Some say 10 – 50?

    1. You can start ranking a site with as few as 8 pages (based on my last “new site” experience).

  48. Hii Matt,

    I also did some experiments on Google Sandbox effect. And If you are in Lion Zeal Mastermind group I have posted my experiments here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/lionzeal/permalink/2145308169036682/. But in Experiment #3 on my FB post I did this with just 2 domains.

    Am the the guy who loves experimenting. I am also doing other tests related to this and soon I will post in that group. But taking those experiments one step further.

    I am sure you will be happy to see the results.

    Cheers,

    Sachin

  49. My website is currently experiencing sandbox. I bought the domain and started the site in January 2018, now today is 12th May, when could I be set free?

    1. Depends entirely on what you do with the site, and a little bit of luck. There’s no set time.

  50. Hi Matt,

    After searching for a long while I think I’ve found an answer to my sandbox issues! Great article, still looking good three years on!

    Just one quick question. With the social signals with SEOButler do you recommend using homepage URL or a URL of a cornerstone blog post for example.

    My aim is to get traffic for the website overall, so there is no particular need to focus on a post. Just wanted to know what your approach would be, as you only seem to have the ability to submit one naked URL for the signals.

    Thanks.

  51. Should I continue throwing PBN links at it until I am ranked where I want to be?
    I mean can they do the job alone ?
    And recommend me some good PBN sellers.

    1. As of the time of this writing, I like combining PBNs and outreach from sites with traffic. I use Rank Club and Authority Builders, respectively.

  52. Should I continue throwing PBN links at it until I am ranked where I want to be?
    I mean can they do the job alone ?
    And recommend me some good PBN sellers.

    1. Actually… I hate the strategy of throwing links at anything to get it ranked. Honestly, links are about 20% of the equation in 2018.

  53. What are these social signals as mentioned on the 3rd point? Is it Web 2.0 links getting created with help of FCS Networker or are something else?

  54. Hi matt according to you press release can help in benefit for my new born amazon affiliate sites and which press release service can i use for this.

  55. Hey Matt,

    I know you may have done experiments on “How long will a backiink take to show its effect after sandbox period”

    Can you please share your thoughts on this.

    Cheers,
    Sachin

  56. Hi matt. This is really a guide i’ve been looking for. Thanks for this amazing guide.

    I have a beauty blog. It’s been 3 years old and it’s been my back bone for the last 2 years. It’s been the most profitable blog of mine. I really depend on this blog as it generates 80% of my total earnings.

    One day i felt that the domain name was ridiculous and weird so I decided to re-brand it.
    I didn’t think about sandbox period at the moment. I know sandbox well but It was out of my mind.
    I have done the redirected the old domain to the new one correctly. However, like all other domains, it has to experience the sandbox period which is “killing me” now.

    FYI, I have Verified the new domain in Search Console. I have done all steps to domain rebranding suggested by SEO experts.

    The domain is indeed a brand new domain but it’s not a completely new domain. It’s a new “version” of my old domain.

    So, I have a question for you, I hope you don’t mind to help me. 🙂

    Does google treat the domain like normal new domains that have to experience google sandbox?
    And for beauty niche, how long does the sandbox usually last?

    Please help me.
    Thanks matt…

    1. It shouldn’t be sandboxed if its an aged domain and all you’ve done is a rebrand. And (afaik) sandbox isn’t niche-specific.

    1. In my experience, in general, Google can’t tell the difference between paid backlinks and natural backlinks. There are a few exceptions to this. They are:

      If the link has rel=sponsored in the link.
      They are obvious Guest Posts. ie the site has “guest post by”, “write for us”, “sponsor a post” etc on the webpage.

      Also, check if the links you are getting are from “bad neighborhoods”. Eg is the site selling links to anybody and everybody. Does the site include links to porn, gambling, cbd, and any other “shady” niche sites

  57. Hey Matt, where should we send the social signals to? The homepage or money pages of an affiliate website?

    1. Social signals are used to justify the links you are getting. You should send social signals to the pages you wish to build links to.

Comments are closed.