So what is the best way to decide (if you're showing at no.1 for the jibberish search), whether you're in the sandbox or other filters have been applied? After my extreme excitement yesterday...I'm starting to feel that maybe I've over optimized my keyword instead and been filtered out

This sandbox effect is doing my nut dont fret though, I think a nice cold beer is in order I'm number one or on the first page for all terms when I use that filtered search, perhaps I'll get too much business :-) Google at the moment is destined to keep me at 479. Whatever I do 479 seems to be my niche for my searchwords. IN some ways I think I'd be better off buying a banned domain I'm sure I would of got a number 1 a lot quicker. I wish they'd have a limit on it though, I mean say for example 30 llinks. The algo should be able to tell who is buying 1000s of domains and who isn't. I mean if the site is 10 days old and has 300 links for example then sure be suspicious but 10 I think Is fine.

Zapcat dont start scaring me now with being filtered out...That is a freaky prospect. How long have you been playing in the sand, I wanna know how long this stuff takes.

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Web Design Newport Cardiff
SEO Wales

I'm doing a good job scaring myself My site's been up a couple of months but it's only really the last month I've been heavily seoing and link grabbing, with my key phrase featuring majorly in the link titles.

Thats a similar scenario to me, I ranked better with a 0 bar, whats annoying me is should I go on another links binge or should I just chill for a while...

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Web Design Newport Cardiff
SEO Wales

Curious vord wonders what the fuss is about. You seem to be number 1 in Google for the keyphrase you are developing - "prime sports picks".

The text in inbound links to your site is pretty important. Google ranks you for what that text says. Try to get some more links with "sports handicapping" and "npa picks". That would boost those phrases a bit. Unrelated text might get you to the top 30s for other phrases because of your PR5, but direct links with the right keywords directed at pages with a very specific title will help much more.

This would kind of make sense as Yahoo seems less fussy about inbounds and more particular about on page stuff.

Oops - missed the 1|2|3 page thing at the bottom. You guys will have no idea what I'm takling about by now.

[edit reason] I started well but ended up mashing it... sorry... LOL [/edit]

Thanks Vord. Your advice makes much sense. My problem, and the reason for this topic initially, is that I am invisible for the phrase "sports picks" (although I may be number 1 for 'prime sports picks'). I am beginning to alter my anchor text for backlinks using these other key phrases.

Thanks again.
-CG

I too tried that, and discovered, that my page is on the third SERP. But my site is not so new. It's at least 6 months old(I think it's even older). But the current keywords I chose recently (About 2-3 months ago). Can the sandbox effect affect that also, if there is such a thing? Or what's my problem???

thx...

Vaix