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And then there was The google sandbox .. lo and behold

May 17, 2015 by admin Leave a Comment

What is the Google sandbox

You just launched a new website with a new domain and its links are still not showing up in Google search engine. You probably are experiencing the Google sandbox. Here are some of the symptoms of Google sandbox

I just bough domain and no backlinks are showing for website

I just made a new website and no links are showing

My new website is not ranking on Google

Google Sandbox 2.0 a.k.a. “Google Waiting Period”

When a brand new site on a brand new domain is launched, it gets put into what SEO professionals have dubbed the Google Sandbox. The Google Sandbox effect is theory that exists among webmasters on the Internet that web pages on new domain names rank poorly in the SERP (search engine result page) even though they have a high page rank. The sandbox will be on new domain names for a period from 3-8 months. The months in sandbox is just speculation and could be anywhere from 3 months to 6 months from reports by seo researchers.

The Google Sandbox is for new domains, not new sites

Check out Google’s Matt Cutts discussing the relevance of domain age.

In that video Cutts said:

“The difference between a domain that’s six months old vs one year old is really not that big at all. As long as you’ve been around for at least a couple of months, you should be able make sure that you can show up in search results.”

Matt Cutts said, there is some difference between a domain that’s six months old and one that’s 12 months old, but the difference at that point is incredibly small. The important thing is to wait out those first few month.

How to rank, even in the Google Sandbox

You can still rank your website even is Google is punishing your new site by placing it in the Sandbox. You can absolutely build a brand new site on a brand new domain and still rank well in Google — but you’ll have to likely target keywords for which there is relatively low competition.

2^nd method

Get a existing domain that has already had a website for some time, but make sure its relevant o your niche not penalised or has a spam link profile. You can quickly do this by a quick check in google search engine like this , search for Site:http://www.thedomain.com where the domain is the site which you are checking, it will show up all the backlinks for that website.

Or you can also check it here https://moz.com/researchtools/ose/

Acquire links from authoritative sites.

Plan ahead– contrary to the general practice of launching a site when it is absolutely complete, launch a couple of pages, when you have them. This will start the clock and time will be running parallel to your site development efforts.

Try to gain some social shares to validate the links that your site has recently got.

Google is still indexing your site, even while you’re in the Google Sandbox. You’re still a part of their index. In addition to the number and quality of links pointing to your website, the age of those links is also important in determining your site’s TrustRank. On the day a link to your website is published, Google awards your site only a portion of the total TrustRank that link possesses

Why your website or blog might not be ranking

If you were ranking well and suddenly vanished from the rankings, that usually indicates either: you had low quality backlinks and those backlinks have been removed from the link index (and indeed open site explorer shows zero quality backlinks for your site); that your site has duplicate content, spun content, shallow content, or too many ads and has run afoul of Panda, or is suffering a manual penalty.

To conclude its best to build authority links and links in a natural manner over a period of time. If your blog backlink profile is a gradual steady rise as most authorative blogs would be, with a mix of social shares etc . then it should slowly rise out of the sandbox and climbing the slippery mountain called google search engine

The Basics of a Strong E-Commerce Website

June 30, 2014 by admin 1 Comment

Whether you are selling expendable luxuries or crucial items that people need, a well thought-out and practical approach to an e-commerce site is critical to achieving those sales. Some people will try and model their site on another one or spend hours online searching for the key to unlock the secret to an effective site. Inevitably, scores of people end up turning to professionals like 4040 Creative to help them achieve the competitive edge.

Curious on how to get started? Read on and discover the three basics that you need for a strong e-commerce website.

Simplicity

Don’t get carried away with fancy widgets and distracting nonsense. A tasteful and effective e-commerce site has just enough style and flair to highlight the products, but not so much that it distracts or adds clutter that can make the site difficult to navigate.

Simplicity and ease of usability is what is strived for. Avoid disguised or hard to find navigation buttons and try to stick with normal website conventions. You want your website to stand out, be memorable and, most importantly, make sales, but try and step out of your shoes and pretend to be a customer navigating your site. Are buttons and sliders where you expect them? Do the browsing and purchasing processes feel familiar and hassle-free?

Branding

As an e-commerce site, you want to strive for not only more customers, but return customers. To help you get those repeat purchases, have a strongly branded site. When people think about going online to buy something, they may have an idea of where to go to get it and a mental picture of that site in their mind. To achieve this, have an eye-catching logo and use a consistent colour palette throughout the site.

Tools

Every website has a goal and with an e-commerce site, that goal is to make sales. To make these sales, you need to be selling what your customer wants, but you also need to make it as smooth and painless as possible for them to conduct a transaction from start to end.

From the get-go, if people can’t find what they are looking for quickly and easily they will move on. Studies show that people have extremely low attention spans and little patience when looking for something in particular online. Having a streamlined search function will help connect interested customers with the products they are looking for quickly.

Providing customers with the ability to create an account is another effective way of getting them to make future purchases. If customers can create an account which saves their billing information, purchase history and shipping address, the purchase process will be expedited for them the next time. This should be optional though, as forcing them to create an account to make a purchase may turn some people away.

There are many features of an e-commerce website that make it an effective one – being familiar with some of them will help you make informed decisions when planning yours.

5 Signs Your Website Needs a Redesign

May 22, 2014 by admin Leave a Comment

Your website is often the first impression that people will get of your brand or business and while revamping it may be a significant time and cost expense, sometimes it’s not something that you can afford to delay. How do you know when it’s time to redesign your website? Read on to find out.

It Isn’t Mobile Friendly

Mobile matters. At the TechCrunch conference in early 2014, Yahoo! Chief Executive Marissa Mayer told attendees that their mobile users are already up 43% from this time last year and they expect that figure to keep climbing in 2014 to a point where they will potentially outnumber desk top users before the end of the year.

There Is No Social Media Integration

Including links to your social media platforms from your website is the absolute minimum you should be doing. Ideally, you should be making it as easy as possible for people to share your content across Pinterest, Facebook and Twitter. Incorporating social sharing tools enables your customers to help spread the word about your business organically across their digital profiles.

It’s Cumbersome to Update

Do you still have to email off changes to your web design team or allocate half a day just to upload a new special to your website? Websites were never meant to be a static medium and regularly updating your content means that your site visitors have a reason to keep coming back. If you can’t update it yourself or your content management system is hard to use, it may be time to consider and upgrade.

You’re Losing Traffic

Have your website visitors declined in recent years, or do they leave your site quickly after finding it? It may be that your content – or your whole design – needs to be updated. Things that you can immediately do to remedy this is do an audit of your website and remove anything that is obviously out of date – a promotion that expired six months ago or even held last year for example. Regularly updating your website with useful information not only helps with your search engine rankings, but also ensures that there is a purpose for people to visit – and revisit – your website.

You’ve Rebranded

This one might seem a little obvious but there are a surprising number of businesses out there who’ve updated their logo and branding but haven’t transferred the new look to their website. The same look and feel should be consistently applied across all facets of your business – if the website doesn’t match your Facebook page or what people experience when they come into your premises, it can have a negative impact on how they view your brand.

If your website can identify with any of these five warning signs that it might be time to redesign, you should start making plans and enquiries now. A professional audit by an integrated digital agency like Simple can arm you with tips that can help your current site while planning ahead to make sure that you’re maximising your online potential and staying ahead of the competition.

When was the last time your website was revamped?

And then there was The google sandbox .. lo and behold