Congrats everyone

[Paz]

Hi!

I've just noticed that the forum has had 4 referrals for "SEO forum"!

When I checked in Google, we were ranked in #29th place (South Africa searches only) which is fantastic when you think that we were only indexed a few weeks ago!

http://www.google.co.za/search?num=100&hs=mWf&hl=en&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&q=seo+forum&btnG=Search&meta=cr=countryZA

Cheers,
Paz.

[Blazingpie]

Hmmm... id say that this supports the idea that the sandbox doesnt affect regional SEs...

[Paz]

Hi,

Interesting point. I've had competitive, foreign language sites that weren't hit by the sandbox, and I've always found that the effect applied to .co.uk searches too; but I don't know about South African searches.... interesting.

Anyway, as you know, the box doesn't kick in for a few weeks or months until after a site starts picking up links, but we're being very careful with this campaign.

Koz... we're in your careful hands! :google:

[Blazingpie]

lol, no pressure koz :p

[Koz]

hi all and thank you for the support,

I did the same search as Paz but put "seo forum" in quotation marks and we came 5th!

http://www.google.co.za/search?hl=en&q=%22seo+forum%22&btnG=Search&meta=cr%3DcountryZA

I don't think its a case of the sandbox not affecting regional SEs. Our success is probably due to the fact that we have a high quality site that is relevant to South Africa. Many belive that if Google is satisfied with your quality and you have "expert" backlinks, then theres no need for your site to be sandboxed.

This guy explains the sandbox in very simple terms
http://www.kruse.co.uk/sandbox.htm

Cheers, Koz

[Paz]

Another reason for the possibility that we may have skipped the box is that the forum is on a sub-domain.

I've always heard people claim that the best way to avoid a year of zero rankings is to use a sub-domain eg forums.digital-m.co.za, but I've always considered this search engine marketing advice to be bogus.

That could be my second mistake this year... :shhh:

Cheers,
Paz.

[Webzcas]

Another reason for the possibility that we may have skipped the box is that the forum is on a sub-domain.

This works and I have seen it work.

Example. Ladbrokes recently redirected their poker, casino and games sites to newly created subdomains on their ladbrokes.com domain. Ladbrokes casino ie now casino.ladbrokes.com is now starting to rank very very nicely in google.

Prior to doing this, Ladbrokes did next to nothing off site wise with their domains ladbrokescasino.com ladbrokespoker.com etc etc and therefore they didnt rank anywhere.

Funny thing is they recently hired a full time seo who implemented this. When I was working there up until last summer, if they had let me work on the sites seo, they wouldn't have needed to shell out all that cash on a new person :razz:

[Blazingpie]

wait, i thought that the subdomain only skipped the sandbox if the main domain was out of it... :/