Apr 23, 2009
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When trying to get a website to rank well in the search engines one of the things that every webmaster must deal with is the different phases that a search engine will put a website through. Most new websites will go into what is called the Honeymoon Phase.
This is where a new website will be doing fairly well in the search engines after they launch and rank high for what some would say has some tough competition. The question of “why did my website drop after it was doing so well?” could bring back many different answers and opinions.
For websites that are new that have launched and rank high the website owner is very excited about his positioning and then when he sees that his website has dropped there can be some frustration. So why do some new websites rank well and then drop.
The time that a new website ranks well is called the Honeymoon Phase and appropriately named due to the website being new and recently launched. Google seems to use this Honeymoon Phase within its rankings as their are new websites that will show up in the results and then drop.
As a new website owner do not get overly discouraged when you see your new website do well and then all of a sudden drop. This is just the search engine getting a feel of your website and going through the whole crawling and indexing stage.
The search engines love new content and when you publish a new website with a bunch of new content they love it, but after that the website goes through what every website must go through and that is having links that point to your website to show the search engines that other people think your website is good and talks about what you say it does.
After the Honeymoon Phase Google will place some websites in what is called the Google Sandbox which is where Google places a website for a time to see how the website will prove its worth so to speak. On average the Google Sandbox is around 6 months.
When it comes to launching a new website there is a lot of proving your worth that has to happen and time is a big factor. For new websites time is not their friend but while you are in this proving ground period it is essential to add content on a regular basis and build links naturally.
For SEO‘s the Honeymoon Phase is just a part of the game and many realize that it will take time and work to build a websites reputation and authority. There is no quick white hat strategy in getting a website to the top of keyword queries that are very competitive.