How many pages can i add to a new website without going to the google sandbox ?

Question

Hello there,

I'm about to open a new website wich have 15.000 pages (ecommerce store). Of course, i will not publish all this pages at the same time, but i'm looking for infos on how much pages should i start with without going to the sandbox. For example, could i start with a 50 pages website or is it too much ?

Then, have you an idea (i know there's no precises rules here) what's the frenquency / volume of pages i could add later ? (50 pages / a day is it ok ?)

Thank you very much for your advice, and sorry for my english :-)

Answer 1

As far as I am aware, the sandbox is an automatic process for all new sites (except .gov and .edu). Of course most of the information on SEO is based on conjecture anyway.

I have to admit I am interested where you got the idea that the number of pages a site lauches with determines whether it is put in the sandbox or not. I sounds a somewhat preposterous assertion.

Answer 2

There is no maximum number of pages. Although many large sites have seen their number of indexed pages dropping.

According to a blogpost by Rand Fishkin (founder of SeoMoz) there are 8 points at which Google might limit the number of pages:

• Importance on the Web's Link Graph
• Backlink Profile of the Domain
• Trustworthiness of the Domain
• Rate of Growth in Pages vs
• Backlinks
• Depth & Frequency of Linking to Pages on the Domain
• Content Uniqueness
• Visitor CTR and Usage Data Metrics
• Search Quality Rater Analysis + Manual Spam Reports

You can read this interessting blog post: Google's Indexation Cap.

Having a good site architecture will help you too. Also from Rand this post is related: Diagrams for Solving Crawl Priority & Indexation Issues

Answer 3

Another great way to make sure google can access all of your pages is to have a good sitemap. This will show google that you are not trying to hide anything as well as it will give your site a great interlinking. The best way to have such a large site to get indexed is to have great linking between your pages and to have a sitemap. You can auto-generate a sitemap by going to :

http://www.xml-sitemaps.com/

Good luck