Home > Articles > Business & Management

SEO Made Easy: Using Time to Gain Trust

Evan Bailyn outlines of the typical journey a well-managed site takes before it is able to rank for the most difficult keywords.
This chapter is from the book

The Sandbox

A mandatory ranking delay for new sites is the kind of SEO principle that doesn’t make sense for most websites but benefits the entire ecosystem. Google instituted the sandbox, or the waiting period that all new websites must incur before they can rank properly, to keep fly-by-night spammers out of the index. As mentioned in Chapter 2, “The Five Ingredients of Google Optimization,” if you were doing a lot of Googling in the early 2000s, you might have noticed many spammy sites in the search results. These sites were set up for the purpose of making money quickly and unethically, and then shuttering their online doors after just a few weeks. Using link farms (vast, interconnected networks of low-quality links), these sites were able to rise to the first page quickly due to Google’s then-weaker algorithm. Many of them took a lot of money from people before Google discovered and banned them.

Because of this group of scammers, we all have to suffer. As I was saying, the sandbox nearly broke me when I was first learning about SEO. It took a full year for my college consulting website to finally see the light of Page 1. If another three months had gone by without reward for my work, I would have run out of money. Thankfully for all of us, Google has found other ways to identify spammers, and today the sandbox is a shadow of what it once was.

In addition to the number and quality of links pointing to your website, the age of those links is also important in determining your site’s TrustRank. On the day a link to your website is published, Google awards your site only a portion of the total TrustRank that link possesses. The rest of its TrustRank is earned later on, as the link settles in as a permanent part of the website hosting it.

With all the waiting webmasters have to do, I thought it would be helpful to offer an outline of the typical journey a well-managed site takes before it is able to rank for the most difficult keywords.

Prepublishing Period

What you do in the time period before publishing your site to the Web is crucial. The moment Google learns there’s a new kid in town, it starts sizing him up. One of the biggest distinctions Google will make on Day 1 is whether your website is a resource or a commercial site. If you are purely publishing a blog, Google gives your site special favor; if a commercial site, it starts at the bottom like everybody else’s, rising up as it earns TrustRank.

I learned of this distinction in early 2011, while creating a community for a client of mine. This particular client wasn’t concerned with commercial gain at the start of our campaign; he just wanted to amass an audience interested in the general theme of his company’s services. So, we built and designed a beautiful blog on the WordPress platform for him, publishing great articles each day. We were thrilled to see the community grow steadily right from the start, reaching about 35,000 visitors per month by the second month of the campaign. This was unusually generous of Google; they were allowing thousands of keywords to rain traffic on a site that had barely been around 60 days. Well, the client was thrilled—so thrilled that he decided it was time to start offering his company’s services on the site. We minimized the blog on the home page, making room for information about his services. On the same day that we compromised the purity of the blog by adding a commercial element, the traffic took a nosedive. Fifteen days later, it had halved (see Figure 4.1).

Figure 4.1

Figure 4.1 A chart showing the traffic of a site that was originally built as a noncommercial blog, which was then converted to a more commercial site around March.

At first we were confused, but then I started noticing similar trends in other clients for whom we had created blogs simply for branding or exposure. The interesting thing is that Google did not make the reason for the demotion immediately clear. Rather, it slowly reduced the number of keywords the site showed up for over time, even allowing a big spike in the midst of the decline. This is typical Google. If they made their algorithms too clear, more people would be able to decipher them.

0–1 Months: The Period of Nothingness

Whether your site is classified on Day 1 as a resource or a commercial entity—and the vast majority are considered commercial, including nonprofit websites seeking donations—your first month is unlikely to be a high-traffic one. Google is waiting to see what will happen with it, stealthily collecting data to understand your site’s content production and link-acquisition trajectories. Make no mistake that, although few people may arrive at your website from organic search, your actions during this period will affect your site’s future traffic. This is exactly the time when you need to get busy building links. If you do not build links in the first few months, your site will continue to be stagnant until you do build links.

2–4 Months: Behold, a Brave New World

After your site has been around for a couple of months, it has the opportunity to rank for some fairly competitive keywords. The number and competitiveness of keywords depends on the TrustRank you’ve built thus far. In my company’s own campaigns, we usually see an up-and-to-the-right traffic trend begin to form in the first few months, with several hundred different keywords sending traffic by the third or fourth month. This is not time period where you should expect to rank for your most difficult keywords unless you’ve built a lot of great links (think 40 to 50) and you’ve got a very niche business.

4–6 Months: The Winds of Trust

If you were building links in a casual, nonaggressive way for the past few months, your site will now be able to rank for a number of valuable keywords. It could even rank for some competitive ones. If you’ve been an animal about link building (50 to 100 links), you could already be on Page 1 for some of your most valuable terms. However, you will almost definitely not be dominating your industry. Yet.

6–12 Months: Dropping Anchor

For the average, hardworking webmaster, this will be a time of great prosperity, where your consistent hard work building links, crafting meta page titles, and optimizing your website for conversion pays off. At this point in a site’s life, it very well may have built enough TrustRank to prove out the viability of SEO for your business. Although your site still won’t rank for huge terms like mesothelioma or airline tickets, it could rank for slightly longer tail terms such as jewelry store los angeles, personalized china, and the like.

1–2 Years: Welcome to the Land of Trust

If you’ve followed the advice in this book, this stretch will be an exciting one for your business. Your traffic graph has seen its biggest lurches upward, and is now moving up in a slower, more steady fashion each month (taking seasonality into account, of course). Google’s door is now 100% open to you, and as long as you keep all of your methods above board, your site has the opportunity to rank for pretty much any keyword. Google now views your site the way society views a young, roguishly handsome businessperson—as impressive and capable of great feats but not as well respected as he will be later on in his career.

2–4 Years: A Seasoned Citizen

By now, your site should have a number of old, trusted links and be a shining member of its community. Not only is it ranking well for uncompetitive and competitive keywords alike, but your site is also a highly sought-after influencer—a site from which any other site would feel privileged to gain a link. These are the good times. With a history of building links in a natural way and continuing to attract links on a regular basis, your site may rise in search results as you please. Your site joins the ranks of those “unbeatable” websites that are always on the first page for the most competitive keywords in an industry.

May this list keep you oriented on the sometimes-dizzying road to top rankings. After publishing Outsmarting Google, I got emails from a number of people who experienced a trajectory very similar to the one in this list. I hope you do, too.

InformIT Promotional Mailings & Special Offers

I would like to receive exclusive offers and hear about products from InformIT and its family of brands. I can unsubscribe at any time.

Overview


Pearson Education, Inc., 221 River Street, Hoboken, New Jersey 07030, (Pearson) presents this site to provide information about products and services that can be purchased through this site.

This privacy notice provides an overview of our commitment to privacy and describes how we collect, protect, use and share personal information collected through this site. Please note that other Pearson websites and online products and services have their own separate privacy policies.

Collection and Use of Information


To conduct business and deliver products and services, Pearson collects and uses personal information in several ways in connection with this site, including:

Questions and Inquiries

For inquiries and questions, we collect the inquiry or question, together with name, contact details (email address, phone number and mailing address) and any other additional information voluntarily submitted to us through a Contact Us form or an email. We use this information to address the inquiry and respond to the question.

Online Store

For orders and purchases placed through our online store on this site, we collect order details, name, institution name and address (if applicable), email address, phone number, shipping and billing addresses, credit/debit card information, shipping options and any instructions. We use this information to complete transactions, fulfill orders, communicate with individuals placing orders or visiting the online store, and for related purposes.

Surveys

Pearson may offer opportunities to provide feedback or participate in surveys, including surveys evaluating Pearson products, services or sites. Participation is voluntary. Pearson collects information requested in the survey questions and uses the information to evaluate, support, maintain and improve products, services or sites, develop new products and services, conduct educational research and for other purposes specified in the survey.

Contests and Drawings

Occasionally, we may sponsor a contest or drawing. Participation is optional. Pearson collects name, contact information and other information specified on the entry form for the contest or drawing to conduct the contest or drawing. Pearson may collect additional personal information from the winners of a contest or drawing in order to award the prize and for tax reporting purposes, as required by law.

Newsletters

If you have elected to receive email newsletters or promotional mailings and special offers but want to unsubscribe, simply email information@informit.com.

Service Announcements

On rare occasions it is necessary to send out a strictly service related announcement. For instance, if our service is temporarily suspended for maintenance we might send users an email. Generally, users may not opt-out of these communications, though they can deactivate their account information. However, these communications are not promotional in nature.

Customer Service

We communicate with users on a regular basis to provide requested services and in regard to issues relating to their account we reply via email or phone in accordance with the users' wishes when a user submits their information through our Contact Us form.

Other Collection and Use of Information


Application and System Logs

Pearson automatically collects log data to help ensure the delivery, availability and security of this site. Log data may include technical information about how a user or visitor connected to this site, such as browser type, type of computer/device, operating system, internet service provider and IP address. We use this information for support purposes and to monitor the health of the site, identify problems, improve service, detect unauthorized access and fraudulent activity, prevent and respond to security incidents and appropriately scale computing resources.

Web Analytics

Pearson may use third party web trend analytical services, including Google Analytics, to collect visitor information, such as IP addresses, browser types, referring pages, pages visited and time spent on a particular site. While these analytical services collect and report information on an anonymous basis, they may use cookies to gather web trend information. The information gathered may enable Pearson (but not the third party web trend services) to link information with application and system log data. Pearson uses this information for system administration and to identify problems, improve service, detect unauthorized access and fraudulent activity, prevent and respond to security incidents, appropriately scale computing resources and otherwise support and deliver this site and its services.

Cookies and Related Technologies

This site uses cookies and similar technologies to personalize content, measure traffic patterns, control security, track use and access of information on this site, and provide interest-based messages and advertising. Users can manage and block the use of cookies through their browser. Disabling or blocking certain cookies may limit the functionality of this site.

Do Not Track

This site currently does not respond to Do Not Track signals.

Security


Pearson uses appropriate physical, administrative and technical security measures to protect personal information from unauthorized access, use and disclosure.

Children


This site is not directed to children under the age of 13.

Marketing


Pearson may send or direct marketing communications to users, provided that

  • Pearson will not use personal information collected or processed as a K-12 school service provider for the purpose of directed or targeted advertising.
  • Such marketing is consistent with applicable law and Pearson's legal obligations.
  • Pearson will not knowingly direct or send marketing communications to an individual who has expressed a preference not to receive marketing.
  • Where required by applicable law, express or implied consent to marketing exists and has not been withdrawn.

Pearson may provide personal information to a third party service provider on a restricted basis to provide marketing solely on behalf of Pearson or an affiliate or customer for whom Pearson is a service provider. Marketing preferences may be changed at any time.

Correcting/Updating Personal Information


If a user's personally identifiable information changes (such as your postal address or email address), we provide a way to correct or update that user's personal data provided to us. This can be done on the Account page. If a user no longer desires our service and desires to delete his or her account, please contact us at customer-service@informit.com and we will process the deletion of a user's account.

Choice/Opt-out


Users can always make an informed choice as to whether they should proceed with certain services offered by InformIT. If you choose to remove yourself from our mailing list(s) simply visit the following page and uncheck any communication you no longer want to receive: www.informit.com/u.aspx.

Sale of Personal Information


Pearson does not rent or sell personal information in exchange for any payment of money.

While Pearson does not sell personal information, as defined in Nevada law, Nevada residents may email a request for no sale of their personal information to NevadaDesignatedRequest@pearson.com.

Supplemental Privacy Statement for California Residents


California residents should read our Supplemental privacy statement for California residents in conjunction with this Privacy Notice. The Supplemental privacy statement for California residents explains Pearson's commitment to comply with California law and applies to personal information of California residents collected in connection with this site and the Services.

Sharing and Disclosure


Pearson may disclose personal information, as follows:

  • As required by law.
  • With the consent of the individual (or their parent, if the individual is a minor)
  • In response to a subpoena, court order or legal process, to the extent permitted or required by law
  • To protect the security and safety of individuals, data, assets and systems, consistent with applicable law
  • In connection the sale, joint venture or other transfer of some or all of its company or assets, subject to the provisions of this Privacy Notice
  • To investigate or address actual or suspected fraud or other illegal activities
  • To exercise its legal rights, including enforcement of the Terms of Use for this site or another contract
  • To affiliated Pearson companies and other companies and organizations who perform work for Pearson and are obligated to protect the privacy of personal information consistent with this Privacy Notice
  • To a school, organization, company or government agency, where Pearson collects or processes the personal information in a school setting or on behalf of such organization, company or government agency.

Links


This web site contains links to other sites. Please be aware that we are not responsible for the privacy practices of such other sites. We encourage our users to be aware when they leave our site and to read the privacy statements of each and every web site that collects Personal Information. This privacy statement applies solely to information collected by this web site.

Requests and Contact


Please contact us about this Privacy Notice or if you have any requests or questions relating to the privacy of your personal information.

Changes to this Privacy Notice


We may revise this Privacy Notice through an updated posting. We will identify the effective date of the revision in the posting. Often, updates are made to provide greater clarity or to comply with changes in regulatory requirements. If the updates involve material changes to the collection, protection, use or disclosure of Personal Information, Pearson will provide notice of the change through a conspicuous notice on this site or other appropriate way. Continued use of the site after the effective date of a posted revision evidences acceptance. Please contact us if you have questions or concerns about the Privacy Notice or any objection to any revisions.

Last Update: November 17, 2020