Be Careful of Too Much Search Engine Optimization!

Being at the top of the search engine results page (SERP) is every web site owner's dream. Being number one gets your web site tons of traffic, which should in turn bring in tons of cash. Ahhhh...it's good to be king! But there is a downside to getting too good, too fast...the infamous "sandbox!"Web pages are usually ranked according to how many links to that site/page are coming from other external web sites. The rank of the external site is also a factor with more highly ranked sites carrying more weight. The higher ranked a web page is for any given keyword, the higher up in the SERP that web page appears. You say..."yeah, yeah! That what I want. I wanna be king!"But wait! Search engines just plain expect web sites to slowly, and over time gather more and more incoming links, and therefore ranking. If a brand new domain name shoots up to number one over-night the search engines see red-flags. They think you are up to something funny and are cheating their well-thought up system for page ranking because gaining that much page rank, that quickly just shouldn't happen. When they see this, they can put you in the "sandbox."Being in the sandbox means that after you really pushed your web site hard, got tons of incoming links, and went right up to the top of the SERPs...now you're in the sandbox and your web page is hovering somewhere around the 10zillionth result. Not good!It is as if they arbitrarily decide..."hmmm...this web page right here shot up in the results really fast. Let's mess with them and move them to the bottom." I know it seems unfair, and contrary to think that a web page could be penalized for being too good. But search engines can and have done this! Eventually you can get out of the sandbox. But this can take months, or even up to a year so you reeeeally don't want to get sent to sandbox...ever!Now one way to not put in the sandbox is to build your incoming links aggressively, but not too aggressively. In any given week submit your site to a few free directories, write a few articles for other sites (with an embedded link to your site of coarse), make posts on a few forums, even consider buying a few quality links from other "authority web sites." Just don't go crazy...spread it out a bit.Another way to avoid the sandbox (which in my opinion could be the best way) is to buy an older domain name. Yup, people can and do let their domain names expire after they've had them for years, and you can pick up these expired domain names and use them for your web page. By doing this you stand a much better chance of avoiding the sandbox, while at the same time being able to aggressively market your web site and therefore rank higher the SERPs!If this option sounds good for you, check out Whois.net. They have a "search through deleted domains" tools where you can find domains which were registered at one time, but are now expired. Since these domains were registered at one time, you know they are at least one year old (since registration lasts a year minimum) and are therefore excellent candidates for your aggressive marketing campaign. Just choose a good domain name that fits your site and market away!Or if this sounds like too much work for you to undertake yourself, find a competent web designer who can handle the details in setting this up!