Yahoo Dopey, MSN Goofy, Google is Mickey Mouse Lost in a Sandbox

Seventy-two days ago Googlebot first showed up and crawled over 250 pages of a brand new domain in an experiment that has had an odd cartoonish character to it, where unexplained things happen with sometimes dark foreboding, a kind of Fantasia online.

If you're unfamiliar with the Disney animation classic, Fantasia, Mickey Mouse plays a sorcerers' apprentice who wreaks havoc one evening as he dons the bosses magic wand and merrily destroys the castle. Comparing Google to Mickey Mouse is probably not often taken to mean low quality or amateurish in the pejorative use of the name. If I were to compare Google to Mickey Mouse, it would be as Jimmy Carter did, saying, "Mickey Mouse is the symbol of goodwill, surpassing all languages and cultures. When one sees Mickey Mouse, they see happiness."

Source: Wikipedia

I'd suggest that most webmasters see Google the same way Carter sees Mickey Mouse. We're very happy to see Googlebot (Mickey) wandering through our pages and he definitely brings happiness - if and when he ever indexes our pages. But for the past 72 days Google has seemed more like the dark character "Chernabog" from the same movie, a nocturnal demon who holds power over various restless souls whom he summons from their graves. That is how those buried deep in that evil sandbox imposed by Google on new sites must imagine the search engine - we'll be summoned from our graves one day. Google crawls after each article in this series, but has yet to index any of the several hundred pages it has spidered.

This consignment to a "Neverland" of invisibility by Google has only seemed to plague sites with content in tightly competitive markets. The category that this new site fits might be considered competitive since it's all about internet business. There are no shortage of sites addressing internet marketing & ecommerce. Peter Pan probably couldn't fly if not sprinkled by a little of Tinkerbell's Google Pixie Dust. The same is true of Sandboxed web sites.

The long sandboxing in this case may be proof of the long time rumor circulated among webmasters that new sites are indexed very quickly for obscure or unpopular terms, while those seeking entry into tough markets take longer to get indexed. The question every webmaster asks in this scenario is, "How long Mickey?" After the first two articles in this case study series were published, one webmaster after another wrote to say their site was fully indexed in 30 days if targeting terms such as "Grow Bananas in Pots."

But those in hotly contested areas, targeting competitive market segments have found themselves in limbo for as long as six months before release from the Google Sandbox. Guidelines would be nice. Doing that daily search at Google using query operator "site" to find how many, if any, pages are indexed at the search engine gets tiresome after ten weeks of looking. Those who suggest that it only takes a few links to get indexed by Google can do a link search at both MSN (369 links) and Yahoo (7950 links). A result of the intense interest focused on this story by webmaster ezines & online publications.

The second installment in this case study series ranks at #23 for the Google search "Google Sandbox" from the webmaster site: WWW Coder

This might play out to fulfill other suggestions that those sites that are well optimized with extensive inbound links spending even longer periods in the sandbox due to "over-optimizing" type of penalties. The site now fits both descriptions as it's a text- only site (only images are the logo and background) built to rank well that has hundreds of inbound links. Would that suggest that it is wiser to launch with no optimization, little content, lots of images, extensive javascript, obscure market segment and keep quiet about the site online until indexed and released from that awful black sandbox? THEN optimize, remove images and scripts and slowly ease in to the competitive arena after de-sandboxing?

How long Mickey?

A few words about the other three players in the search engine game... AskJeeves has also not yet released this site from their own version of the sandbox. Playing Sleeping Beauty here Teoma?

Yahoo is now showing 8,210 pages indexed, though they had done the inexplicable and CHANGED THE URL of over 8,040 of those pages sending visitors to error pages until we programmed a special 301 redirect just for Yahoo to change all of them back to those they crawled on the site. This is just plain Dopey behavior and earned Yahoo the Dopey Dwarf role in this Disney Sleeping Beauty toon.

Yahoo also earned the Dopey moniker by being very slow once the pages were crawled to post new pages. We're seeing old versions of the site, versions of pages that haven't existed for over 8 weeks now since Slurp first crawled back in May. Some new pages are indexed, but they make up a tiny portion of those listed.

We've found that Yahoo shows several hundred broken links to an email masking directory we've excluded them from in our robots.txt file - weeks after we banned the Slurp crawler from that directory. Dopey, you're so cute, but real sloooooow.

MSN now indexes 6,162 pages and is crawling the site like mad after each of these sandbox case study articles is published. Their index increases by about 1000 pages per week on a rather regular schedule. We've christened MSN "Goofy" for the bizarre search numbers shown with a "site:Publish101.com" query operator.

MSN shows, across the top of the page on the day after each new update, first a very low number of results, then a higher number of results after clicking in five pages, then a lower number of results after the sixth page. THEN after going to page 25 of search results, it stops showing more results pages. So no matter how many pages are indexed, Goofy shows you only 250 of them. In a search done right before completing this article, MSN shows 220 pages indexed on that "site:Publish101.com" query - as do pages 2 through 4. But if you click page 5, it suddenly shows 6,941 results. Page six (links at top & bottom of results pages) then shows 6,721 results. No more after page 25. Goofy, just plain Goofy.

Dopey Yahoo does this as well, first showing 8,210 pages, then dropping back to 8,040, then 8,020, then 7,980 down to 7,770 at result page #100 where you'll see a link at the bottom of that page saying, "In order to show you the most relevant results, we have omitted some entries very similar to the ones already displayed. If you like, you can repeat the search with the omitted results included." But if you click that link, then click page 10, results drop to 5,700 pages, until result page number 100, which shows 3,140 pages indexed and STILL you can't look beyond 100 results pages - 1,000 results.

Very Dopey, very Goofy and very Mickey Mouse!

Copyright © July 26, 2005

Mike Banks Valentine is a search engine optimization specialist who operates WebSite101

Previous Google Sandbox Case Studies are at the following URL's

Sandbox Case Study #1 Sandbox Case Study #2

---

How To Find Good Keywords

Good keywords are frequently searched for (high demand) but not... Read More

13 Tips For Good Search Engine Placements

When used properly in combination with other basic search engine... Read More

The Biggest SEO Scam of All

While there are many ethical SEO firms serving Internet users... Read More

Googles Next Big Move

November 2003 might go down in history as the month... Read More

The Search Doesnt End at Your Homepage

In a recent report for a new client, I wrote:... Read More

Search Engine Submission - What to Look for when Selecting an Australian SEO Company

Every business owner I've met has been encouraged at some... Read More

Mindset from Yahoo!- Changing the SEO Game

Yahoo! has a developed a new concept in search engine... Read More

Search Engine Marketing 101 For Corporate Sites

When most people want to find something on the web,... Read More

How Google Indexes Content From Your Web Directory

In a fluke, I was able to notice something about... Read More

Developing A List Of Keywords For Marketing

Keywords aren't just some words that allow search engines, like... Read More

10 Ways To Indirectly Get To The Top Of Search

There are millions of web sites trying to get listed... Read More

Google Patent Application - User Data As Part of Ranking Process

In this third article, we continue to dig into the... Read More

Using Meta Tags Wisely to Attract Search Engines and Visitors

There are certain tricks and techniques in SEO industry, which... Read More

Creating a Google SiteMap For Your Work At Home Business Web Page

Search engine traffic is the best traffic You can get... Read More

Do Not Drop Your Web Site Off the Search Engine Cliff

If you've been feeling like Tom Cruise climbing up the... Read More

Good Things Come to Those Who Wait (and Other Analogies and Cliché?s for SEO)

We've all heard that familiar expression, "Good things come to... Read More

Search Warrant

So, you've just paid £300 - £10,000 for a new... Read More

Playing By Googles Rules

As the undisputable leader in search engines, Google places a... Read More

SEO #6: How TO GET Banned by Google!

Yesterday you should have read the fifth course out of... Read More

How Web Design Can Affect Search Engine Rankings

Uniquely built web sites can create unique issues when being... Read More

Your Top Search Rankings at Yahoo & MSN Search are Worthless

It seems I now do this rant every single year... Read More

A Simple 4 Step Approach To Have Google Crawl Your Site Today Guaranteed!

Extra, Extra Google Now Gives you feedback. By Creating a... Read More

Search Engine Optimization for Everyone

There are many facets to SEO and the search engines... Read More

Attack Smaller Searches To Get The Big Ones!

Searching online can not only be fun, but you sometimes... Read More

Is Google Fair?

If you are the owner of a new website, trying... Read More

How Do I Improve My Web Site Conversion Rate? Part 2

Question 1Does it help to track visitor behavior on websites... Read More

How To Write Effective And Unique Articles That Are Optimized for the Search Engines

It is a well known fact that writing, distributing and... Read More

20 Ideas for Creating Traffic Rich, Search Engine Friendly Pages

Sometimes questions will arise around the subject of gateway information... Read More

?Google Friendly? Solutions to Graphic-Intense Sites

We all know that the search engines can't "see" or... Read More

Arrogant Overture Placing Greed Ahead Of Their Customers Needs

According to the dictionary, the definition of the word "overture"... Read More

Directories and Their Importance for Search Engine Rankings

About directories:A directory is simply a web site that contains... Read More

Search Engine Essentials

What are Search Engines?There are numerous different search engines, and... Read More

Tips On Optomizing Your Website For Search Engines

I wish to give a few little tips, about optimizing.... Read More