Trustrank: Avoiding Google’s Aging Filter

12. Oct 2007 | 20 Comments

I’ve been launching a load of new affiliate sites lately & have been coming across many different patterns to how the sites are ranked depending on the type of promotion that I use.

By far the easiest method I’ve used to get quick rankings is buying aged domains, however this doesn’t quite work if you really want to brand an affiliate site or create a brandable network of sites with a similar url theme.

Before Google will start ranking your site for popular or mainstream terms you’ll more than likely see traffic trickle through on “long tail terms,” eventually your site will start to appear for more generic terms.

Now, the time period that this starts to happen can depend on a number of factors:

The rate at which you acquire links
The number of links you acquire
The trust of the website that’s linking to you
The varation of the anchor text in the links

Many people have nicknamed this aging period the “Sandbox” however I personally think that these are filters applied depending on various scenarios & combinations of events.

I’ve found number 4 to be the single most significant factor at tripping Google’s Filters & really dragging out the initial aging phase. The filters that are applied seem to vary, I’ve seen filters applied on a keyword basis only & also on a sitewide basis.

Once you’ve been hit by the filters I’ve seen it take up to 14 months to recover fully.

9 Rules to obide by when launching a new website

Send a Press Release via PRweb when you launch, from what I’ve seen it seems to pass some initial authority to your site.
Don’t overdo it, build your links slowly. 5 in the first week, then 10 & so on.
Avoid Sitewide links initially, the lack of variation in the anchor text will trip the filters.
Don’t go after high PR links, get links from all sources. PR isn’t important, rankings are.
If you’re buying links try to get links initially on individual pages. This will often be cheaper & more effective when your site is starting out.
Try to balance relevant links with non relevant links (i.e. directories & blog comments).
Don’t submit your site to 500 directories with the same anchor text. Keep the anchor text unique.
Avoid reciprocal linking until you start to see your site rank. Try to keep these links on topic.
Don’t just try to build links to your homepage, promote inner pages. This will help your inner pages rely less on the link popularity of your homepage & rank better.

If you want proof that this works, have a look at the following screenshot from Google Analytics. I launched this site for a client of ours on the 12th August (this is search traffic from Google only).

Launched August

Here’s a graph from another site that’s been around much longer (about 18 months).

Aged Site 2 Years

In this second graph you can clearly see a period of filtering just before the huge spike. This period lasted around 3 months. However, since then as the generic rankings have improved so has search traffic.

Slow & Steady: This is how you should be approaching new sites. Naturally as Affiliate Marketers we want rankings RIGHT NOW. I’m sorry but if you take this approach it can actually take you much much longer to get those rankings.

Start slow, experiment with PPC to see how people interact with your site & use that knowledge to help build your keyword focus. If you find yourself getting impatient then do what I do, finish one project, do some initial promotion then move onto the next project. When you start to see traffic increase you know that you can start pushing your promotion a little harder.

Enjoy this post? Get the RSS Feed

20 Comments on "Trustrank: Avoiding Google’s Aging Filter"

Nathan 13. Oct 2007, 1:34 am

I’ve just started to implement a lot of these ideas into my own sites. It will be interesting to see the results. Also, my first post on your blog. I love it. I’ve been lurking for a while now

Geordie 15. Oct 2007, 4:50 am

Awesome post Stuart! Earners’ is one of my favorite blogs because of posts like this!

Tesh 15. Oct 2007, 10:14 pm

Good post

ben 16. Oct 2007, 4:54 am

Good post Stuart. I’ve been really frustrated with the current state of the domain name market (expensive!) so lots of new domains. I’m going to start following your nine steps. Might expound on this more in a post once we see how things go. I’ll remember to reference this article.

Criminal Lawyer Phoenix 17. Oct 2007, 5:09 am

The Sandbox. I have experienced this effect several times. The Sandbox seems to last about 2 months for a new domain. Seems to be based off the registration date, however I am not sure.

I have begun putting a page up on new domains as soon as possible after registering. I then get several inbound links and just wait a few months and bang I’ll see the effect of any additional inbound links.

I have also experience the “long tail terms” effect. Less competitive search terms can be obtained almost immediately while more competitive terms will be filtered out while in the sandbox.

Sohaib 21. Oct 2007, 9:36 pm

Hey Stuart, great post, a couple of questions:

1- Do you use the free or paid service from PRweb for each new site?
2- With starting off new sites and testing new offers, do you usually use blogs or normal websites? scrap content from other sites or get unique content for each site?

Thanks

Mark 23. Oct 2007, 12:37 am

Have you had any experience buying a new domain and an old domain then 301ing the old domain to the new? Pass any “trustrank”?

Medicus Man 01. Nov 2007, 10:27 am

Nice post,

@Mark – this can work if the sites are related, and you leave the whois info intact. You can slowly start changing the fields, but maybe only do one field every couple months. Unless you have a real reason, just leave them along

@ Nathan – put your navigation back on your blog, or at least a contact link

Sean 02. Nov 2007, 12:24 am

I am trying to understand how much money you spend to promote a new site as in this example. Are there free resources out there that can accomplish these goals? Or do you need to committ a certain budget for promoting?

mike 15. Jan 2008, 6:22 pm

Thanks so much for all the great info – I will keep watching this blog for more gems like these!

Chicago Deposit Law 27. Jan 2008, 3:55 pm

I believe one good way to see how your linking campaign has gone, soon, is to check your performance on yahoo. I don’t think the sandbox effect applies there, so it may offer a view of your site’s performance for certain keywords on Google in the future

SelfMadeDude 19. Mar 2008, 4:48 am

Great post and great site, it is causing me a problem though, I am trying to start my own site and am spending too much time reading yours! hehe

Boris C. 06. Apr 2008, 8:22 pm

Great post.
I have been concerned and curious about getting new domain ranked in Google. I had a lot of unanswered questions about the uniqueness in inbound anchor links, but now i see how important it is to make them unique.

I’ve also discovered that reciprocal linking should be done after some time and not instantly when new domain goes live.

I also have got question:
If i am going to build 500 inbound links in near future to my website, then should each inbound link to my website be absolutely unique? I hope not as it will be additional hassle.

dennis 09. Jul 2008, 8:24 am

thanks for the straight info on this perplexing problem with google. i always read about peple talking about the “sandbox” but never really understood what it exactly was until your article.

when you say to vary the anchor text in the links, do you mean link to a page other than the home page, which has a different title tag?

Lars 10. Nov 2008, 11:19 pm

Briliant article and I’m just sorry I didn’t find it earlier in order to implement some of your findings earlier for my website related to childrens clothes, toys, shoes, books and much more.

Franck Silvestre 23. Nov 2008, 9:34 am

Awesome tips.

As for your point seven, it’s quite difficult to get directory submission services to change your anchor text for all the directories.

I found that adding a blog to your site is also good to get Google trust.

Franck

Chris 30. Apr 2009, 4:18 am

Is the $80 submission charge for PRWeb actually worth it?

Mark 16. Oct 2009, 10:53 am

That’s an awesome post, very good info for anyone trying to make sense of how things should be done. It has also backed up most of what i have been thinking, doing an trying to explain to past clients.