Have you heard of this Sandbox issue?

I was in the sandbox for 6 months. A few pages were listed but my mainpage and almost all other pages ranked in the 300-500's on terms I was in the top 10 for. Then last week I seemed to be out of the box and everything was back to normal with top 10 rankings again.

Now my site is completely gone.... several times a day, only to be back completely several times a day. Has anyone heard of anything like this before or what may be the cause of this?

 

The update is not on all datacenters yet (about 90%) and which datacenters it is on seems to be changing. THe API has been steady with the new results so if you use the Keyword Tracker, you will get a better idea.

 

Keyword tracker? What do you mean? So do you think my site is out of the sandbox then?

 

click on tools-keyword tracker from the menu above. That will tell you what your rankings should be once all the data centers are updated (up to position 200)

 

I am a little concerned doing that. Doesn't google frown upon sites that track rankings? Especially when you are giving them your API etc and they know who you are and what your site is?

 

Hasn't seemed to hurt any of my rankings...

 

First of all, Google doesn't really know which domains I'm working on even though they may see that I'm keeping track of certain rankings. Secondly, if that were true, I'd spend a lot more time tracking my competitors rankings!

 

The API was created for this purpose! Fear not, you will not lose ranking for checking your position using the API tool. Google itself requires it be done this way.

 

The Google API is the approved method for tracking your positions in Google. You have to obtain an API key from Google to use it. You are limited to 1000 queries per day. A page of 10 search results is a single query.

Just follow the instructions. It's pretty easy to set up.

 

I have had one of my sites bounce in and out. However the site is only 5 months old so I continue to wait patiently. Luckly Google isn't the only search engine.