Overcoming The Wrath of Sandbox Effect

In order to to protect yourself or escape from the Google Sandbox, you need to do the following things:

First of all, find out whether your website is sandboxed or not. This is quite a simple exercise. All you have to do is to check whether your website is not appearing in the top positions for your target list of keywords. Also check whether your rankings have gone very low inspite of the fact that you have good amount of inbound links, excellent on-page optimization, etc. If the answer to both these questions is 'yes', then beware and be prepared that your website has attracted the wrath of Google Sandbox.

Another important thing to do is to completely understand the working of the search engines. You must drill this fact in your mind that search engines are looking for RELEVANT information for the users and surfers. So long as you keep creating relevant and high quality information related to the subject of your website, you can rest assured of retaining your position in the search engines and need not fear the sandbox effect. Because whatever the different methods of search engines to determine placements, the goal of all of them is the same-giving the most relevant information to the users.

In a way, Sandbox effect acts like a filter on the search engine's algorithm that sifts the relevant from the irrelevant before passing on to the users. The mistaken belief that many webmasters have is that the sandbox effect decreases after some time as a result of website aging.Whereas the fact is that the decrease is due to link-aging. So what you need to do is to continue with a low-intensity, long-term link building plan and keep adding inbound links to your website, and you can escape the wrath of Google Sandbox after a set period of time.

Promotion of website should start as son as possible. Don't wait for it to be perfect. Just jump in the market as soon as it is functional.You can keep improving it with time and requirements of the users.

Do not indulge in any Black Hat SEO practices in the hope of getting higher rankings fast and quick. You may get lucky once or twice, but if caught by the search engine spiders, the penalty can be as bad as getting banned.

The last golden rule is the simplest of all. If you get your basics clear and build the foundation strong, rest it just polishing up or improvement. So get the basics of web designing correct and rest assured.

Obtaining An SEO Proposal: How Important Is It? (Part I)

Any business transaction or dealing is based on a proposal that is first submitted by the company concerned to the client concerned. It is only when the client gives the green signal after reading the proposal that the presentation of the proposal takes place. This means that the proposal is a very important part of any business dealing. If the objectives are not clearly and impressively spelled out in the proposal,you may lose out on a prospective client or winning a contract. SEO is no exception to this. If your company is offering SEO services , submitting a request for proposal (RFP) or request for information (RFI) should be a standard for your company.And it is equally important for the client who is looking for SEO services to obtain an SEO proposal from the firms that are providing such services.

Whether small or large-all companies who are interested in SEO need to know and obtain an estimate for SEO services, though the small companies may not be able to avail the benefits that large ones can owing to the costs involved in SEO services. But obtaining an estimate from different firms offering SEO services can help you draw comparisons and choose the one that best suits your requirements.Understanding and figuring out the objectives spelled out in the proposal will be the major factor for deciding on opting for a particular SEO service providing firm . Thus it becomes all the more important to go through the proposal seriously and carefully before signing any contract or asking a particular SEO firm to work for you.

More about SEO proposal in the next blog.

http://www.segnant.com/

Obtaining An SEO Proposal: Strategies Involved (Part II)

In the last blog , we discussed about the importance of getting an SEO proposal from the firms offering SEO services before signing up a contract with any of them. Now we will talk about the strategies involved in an SEO project and how they are to be mentioned in the proposal.

Your strategies should be spelled out right at the begining of the proposal stating the parts mentioned below in the proposal:

A complete website study on the basis of whether it is live or not. The proposal should clearly mention if you are going to evaluate the site's content, graphics, linking structure and keyword selection etc.

Analysis of the competing sites' rank and position in the search results pages of different search engines for the selected keywords should also be mentioned clearly in the proposal.

On the basis of the above mentioned two components, the selection of keywords should be undertaken and this needs to be put in the proposal.

Mention in the proposal whether you will be providing a comparative analysis and positioning report describing in detail the ranking of your site before, during and after SEO implementation and also how many search engines the website is listed in.

Also mentioning that you will be carrying out an inbound link assessment matching up to the total sites linking to yours and the average inbound links to competing websites also helps make the proposal look more impressive and trustworthy.

Last but not the least, it is important to mention the total number of man hours required for completing the SEO work along with what it means in terms of deliverables. In other words, every project will have its own requirements depending upon what the client wants and what all he/she supplies to you. Accordingly a strategy will be chalked out where at times all the above mentioned steps may be involved and at times,you may skip some of the components.

But on the whole, the proposal has to strike the right chord and make a favorable impression on the clients making them trust you and your firm's SEO capabilities. To put it this way, SEO proposal is like the first impression that you make when you walk-in for an interview. If your persona does not reflect well, the chances of getting through the interview lessen.

Still more to come about SEO proposal in the next blog.

http://www.segnant.com/

The Google Sandbox Theory

How Did The Sandbox Theory Originate?

The time was around March 2004 and the place was World Wide Web. The websites created during this time around the world started experiencing and noticing a surprising change in the rankings of their websites on search engines. And this shocking change was that they were not finding their websites in the top rankings for their selected keywords. Even after being listed in the SERPs (Search Engine Result Pages) for some weeks, their webpages were either not present in the index or were ranking pretty low for the most important keywords. This phenomenon was termed as Sandbox Effect by curious SEO experts .

Why It Occured?

One reasoning that was given for the Sandbox Effect occurance was the 'Time Delay' factor where the search engines release websites from the sandbox after a set period of time. And since a lot of websites started observing and experiencing the effects of sandbox around March 2004, webmasters assumed it to be the time delay factor responsible for their websites' vanishing from the top position on Google. But that is one version of the story and not a very convincing one as evidence shows contrasting results like websites created before March 2004 still not released or as late as July 2004 also managing to escape the Sandbox Effect. The most logical and agreeable theory that explains this strange vanishing act of the websites from the search engines seems to be 'link-aging'. This theory states that the age of the inbound links of a website is the deciding factor for releasing that site from the sandbox.

Clearing The Confusion Regarding Link-Aging

Many people are confused by this concept of link-aging asking that isn't it the website and not the links that age and grow old. No doubt,on the level of conception, the links to the website will get as old as the website itself. But if you stop getting enough relevant and good inbound links after one year, it is common sense that you will be trapped by the Google Sandbox. That's why many websites launched after July 2004 escaped by December 2004 and there were many more which were still caught up in the Sandbox even after Allegra update (where well ranked sites lost their high rankings and low ranked sites shot up to the top for their keywords).

Optimizing Your Website for the Festive Season

Festive season is the time when most people make purchases and spend lavishly because they know it is during this time they will get good bargains and great products and services at very nominal rates. The same holds true for online shopping also. Especially the E-commerce websites can mint money if they optimize their websites for the festive season also.

The most important thing to do is to start optimizing your site atleast a month before the festive season begins. Brainstorming over the special offers,and free gifts or coupons is what the marketing managers should be wracking their brains over during this period. When you start thinking on such lines,you increase the chances of adding more pages to your website that means optimizing the special offer pages for those keywords that may not be covered by the existing pages. The more the special offers pages that you add, better it is for getting more targeted traffic.

The next important step is to upload these new pages well in time before the festive season begins, otherwise the search engines will not index your pages and rank them in time to be found during the festive period. If you think that the offers you are making are not going to begin for quite some time, don't panic. Just upload the special offer pages by adding "our forthcoming or soon to start offer..".

It is also important to use the newly created pages by adding some secondary keywords to your website. For example, if you offer business website designing service , and have optimized your existing pages for "business website designing", or "Designing your business websites" ,you can add some more search terms to make your new pages fully optimized like, "New business website design offer", or "business website designing discount", or "Business website designing advantage". In a way, by optimizing your pages during festive season, you announce to the people concerned to find you for search terms for which you were not found earlier.

Festival season is the time when you can really make a lot of profit, so make the most of it. People save money for this time to buy things they need. They prefer to spend a lot on shopping during the festive season. It is also the time when you as a business person stand to gain the most from your onine sales by optimizing your pages for the festive season.