SEO FAQ - Google General

Google General
1.) What is the "Sandbox Theory"?

The sandbox theory proposes that Google has a unique ranking element in their algorithm that has been affecting sites whose major SEO efforts began after March of 2004 (this would include all sites registerd after this date). The criteria, elements and solution of the 'sandbox' have not yet been identified or publicized by the SEO community, but ongoing discussion and testing have determined that the two of the most likely issues creating the sandbox could be:

• Age of backlinks - older backlinks now carry greater weight at Google


• SEO specific filters - Google is actively attempting to filter sites out of their index that are actively optimizing (link-building, etc) or appear to have un-natural attributes (optimized pages, links, anchor text, etc.)
  

If your site is ranking well for specific keyword phrases at engines like Yahoo!, Teoma, MSN & for the allin sets of searches at Google (allinanchor:, allintitle:, allintext:, etc.) but not listed in the top 50-100 results at Google, the sandbox effect may be at work. However, it is important to keep in mind that this phenomenon is an 'unknown' algorithm piece at Google and standard optimization tactics, even by some of the best and most experienced SEOs have yet to consistently beat this effect.

2.) When does Google update their SERPs (When is the "dance")?
A. There is no longer a Google "dance" per se as SERPs tend to be
updated constantly.

3.) I now use the link: command all the time, is there a list of the
other commands I can use in Google?

link:www.domain.com (returns a list of backlinks that google has indexed. Only
a small selection is listed however.)

related:www.domain.com (returns a list of sites that google sees as related
to the topic on your page. At present, not very accurate.)

allinurl:keyword (returns a list of pages and sites that contain the 'keyword'
in their url.)

site:www.domain.com (returns all pages of the domain that google has crawled
and indexed.)

allinanchor:keyword (returns a list of pages and sites that contain the keyword
as anchor text in their backlinks.)

cache:www.domain.com (will show the current cache that google has for the page)

info:www.domain.com (will return information that google has for the page)

allintitle:keyword (returns webpages that have the specified keywords in the
title)

intitle:keyword (returns listings of webpages that have only the specific keyword
as the title.)

You can find all the Operators at

4.) Am I banned in Google?

A: You can tell if you are banned or not indexed in google, by using the 'site:'
command in Google's search.

(ie. site:www.domain.com)

5.) What is the first thing you would check for if you saw your site
slip down the listings at Google? ( i.e. I'm not on top anymore, what happened?
)
A: A drop in backlinks. Obviously when not aggressively acquiring new backlinks
to your site from day to day, existing backlinks may even deteriorate in value.
The referring site may disappear, be changed, lose relevance or lose PR itself,
reducing the PR that is passed onto you.

6.) When I look up my site in Google, I am #23, but when my friend in
California looks it up I am #31. Which one is right?

A: They both are! Actually, a more accurate explanation is that Google using
multiple datacenters that deliver the results you see. The datacenter that is
used depends on your geographical location. It is very common to see a small
difference in results depending where you are. Sometimes, results can differ
when you move just a few miles away!

7.) Why does Google hate me/pick on me?
A: "Google" does not pick on individual sites but instead allows complex
mathematical equations to decide the value of your site in any particular search.
Although it may sometimes feel like they are picking on you, most times a ban
or bad results can be traced to a small piece of bad or misguided SEO.

8.) Should I submit my website to Google every month?
A: No, you only need to do it once. In most cases you will not even need to
submit your website to Google. If you are active in building links to your website
then Googlebot will frequent your site soon, and thus include it in the index.

9.) My site is not cached in Google, I've submitted it to google numerous
times but I'm not seeing the googlebot crawl my entire site. I'm also seeing
an incomplete listing.

A: Sometimes the googlebot will visit, and leave, only to come back at a later
time in order to crawl all of your pages. If a site has no cache, or an incomplete
listing, it has not been crawled and indexed properly yet. The best thing you
can do is get more in bound links to your site, so that the googlebot arrives
to your site from more than 1 source.