If the homepage is sandboxed for a keyword is the whole site sandboxed for that keyword?

[MarkPrestonSEO]

If the homepage of a website has been sandboxed for certain keywords does this mean that the whole site is sandboxed for them keywords or just the homepage?

If a new sub-page was created with quality unique content, would it be possible to get that sub-page ranked for the same keywords that have been sandboxed on the homepage?

I have asked many other SEO professionals this same question and nobody really knows for sure. Do you?

[RobertFisher]

Mark,

The first question would be... does the sandbox exist (still) and if so who is affected and how? There is a ton of info and non info on the subject, but the best I could find from any source I trust was this from Rand a few years ago: http://www.seomoz.org/blog/googles-sandbox-still-exists-exemplified-by-gradercom

Based on Rand's conclusions, the entire domain would be affected and by changing the domain, the problem abates. 
Given that today with Panda, Penguin, etc. having their own effect for penalties, I am not sure as to the relevance of the term. My guess is that if you created a new page with unique content that page could rank on its own. The sandbox was more apparent around links than content. If you are having a duplicate (borrowed) content problem that would seem more of a penguin issue.

Hope this helps,

[MarkPrestonSEO]

Hi Robert,

This issue relates to a new client we have just taken on. Their site was ranked at the top for major phrases related to their inductry but due to bad link building techniques by their previous SEO company their homepage got sandboxed.

There are still a lot of their inner pages ranking very well, just not the homepage anymore.

I have tried going through their link profile and submitting removal requests but not many are actually being removed.

I have also tried submitting a reconsideration request but just keep getting a message saying the site still does not conform to Google guidelines.

My thinking is, if a lot of their inner pages are still ranking then maybe I can get a new page ranked for the same phrases that has been sandboxed or do you think it is better to start again with a new clean domain.

[rec123]

You should try the new Page route instead of a new Domain.

The fact that your other webpages are ranking well indicates that the Domain still has decent Domain Authority; it's just the Homepage that got penalized. Trying to ranking for a new webpage is a lot less work than building up a new website.

What is the exact file extension of the Homepage? Is it index.php, index.html or index.htm? You can just change the file extension of the Homepage to a different one and adjust your server settings to reflect that; Google will treat it as a new page.

For example, if the Homepage is "index.html" running on an Apache server. Just change it to "index.htm" and in the .htaccess file add this command:
DirectoryIndex index.htm

[RobertFisher]

The difficulty here in giving a reasonable opinion is we do not have the domain or pages to look at. If we did, we could give educated opinions. 
RY.com.au makes a good point if you have pages that are ranking, it is easier to change a page than a domain. It becomes a question of risk/reward. You have to decide.