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The idea of the "sandbox" is an old-fashioned way of looking at a site that doesn't have enough authority to rank well yet. In the past, Google employed different ways of making sure brand new sites were worth ranking before they ranked them, but those methods have changed and the term doesn't apply anymore. Is it possible that the site simply has too few backlinks to be competitive yet? It's often easier to rank well in Bing than it is in Google (although it's surprising you mention that it is not ranking in Yahoo as Bing powers Yahoo's search engine now).

AllieMcA A funeral home is not a service area business. So, the question then is are you set up as AC_Pro suggested in Places for business? Here is the link to Google Places for Business. You should be able to sign in with the same account info as your G+. Do all there that is needed and when you get your postcard you know what to do. I hope this helps; if we have missed something in this group of answers, please let us know and we will assist you. Also, we have a great Local person here (not me, she is smart) who is happy to help out others with short lessons, etc. Best to you and your clients, Robert

Whatever they have could be bolstered by a true SEO campaign. Local resources and local networks sound like low authority links with little-to-no value. I sincerely doubt they will succeed with this approach and I can't for the life of me figure why they would care if someone else was building links for them. They do realize I could go out and build links for their site on my own right this second, right? It's not some sort of weird intrusive/sacred ground or anything.... Wish I knew their reasoning but in the end I'd be absolutely shocked and amazed if this campaign succeeded and if I were you I'd respectfully decline knowing I couldn't do anything to help them if I can't even create links as an SEO... ?! But good luck anyway!!

Hi Try  SEO Optimizer bit slim on fetaures at the moment but:- Allows you to add more rules to ROBOTS.TXT to exclude unimportant and harmful pages. Allows you to set a unique META DESCRIPTION on the home page to remove duplicate META DESCRIPTION across pages. Uses the recommended image optimizers of Google PageSpeed Insights (jpegtran.exe and pngout.exe) to losslessly compress images before serving. Link There are also a few common issues with Nop such as duplicate meta descriptions, etc see the links below nopCommerce SEO Pitfalls and How To Solve Them - Part 1 Couple Of NopCommerce SEO Tips

Hi AllieMC, how did it work out for you? We are in a similar situation and looking to create a google+ local page for each location. Haven't decided how we are going to link them on our website but we have a dedicated landing page for each location that will definitely have the corresponding/appropriate Google+ local link.

Hi AllieMc, This issue is common and complicated. I'm going to link you to a couple of Google And Your Business Forum Threads to see if you see your exact scenario resolved in them. Read these: http://productforums.google.com/forum/#!searchin/business/lost$20account|sort:date/business/seRAeWevjq8/jCxrMZ2J8LsJ http://productforums.google.com/forum/#!searchin/business/lost$20account|sort:date/business/1QxO_JoFttE/XbhaTJ9SFm4J If these don't help, please return with further details.

Hi AllieMc, Unfortunately, I'm not quite sure what the status of the rollout of the new dashboard is at this point in New Zealand. In the United States, the top Local SEOs have been advising against merging for some time because the outcomes could be so wonky. Not sure if that is the same in NZ. Now, however, Google has rolled out a completely new Places for Business Dashboard. They way this will work will be that you can either just have a local-type page or you can upgrade the page to have the social features. Mike Blumenthal explains this well (http://blumenthals.com/blog/2013/04/02/google-local-rolling-out-places-for-business-upgrade/) "Once an account is transitioned the dashboard account will be automatically redirected to the new interface. If that account has a Plus account the option to edit the Google+ page will appear in the interface. But a G+ profile is not required to interact with the business profile. All that is needed is the existing Google ID/email. The business will be required to obtain a G+ personal profile if they want to add the additional features (social stream, videos) of a full G+ Local page. When this rollout is complete there will be only two types of local pages: verified and unverified. Each business can decide whether they need the social and video features or not." I'm not sure if this has rolled out in NZ yet, but if not, you might want to wait until it does to make any changes. Here is another good post by Mike explaining some of the features of the new dashboard, so you can be prepared: http://blumenthals.com/blog/2013/04/02/analysis-google-places-for-business-or-g-pages-lite/

Hi AllieMc, Yes, it sounds to me like your client is a local business owner who needs to comply with the hide-address rules, which are still applicable to the new Google+ Local. However, before he jumps into this, he has got to pick a single, local area code number to publish officially with on his website and his Google+ profile and all the citations you may be building for him. Not multiple numbers and no toll free numbers. Just one number that matches his city of location. Now, in the case of home based businesses that do not wish to publish their address anywhere on the web, there are some things you need to know. If the client is unwilling to publish his complete NAP (name, address, phone number) on his website (typically in the footer and on the contact page), then I feel this may place him a little behind the game vs. competitors who are willing to publish their NAP. The irony of this is that Google doesn't want the complete NAP in Google+ for service area businesses, but it is my belief that having it on the website can still be important. If he just can't publish it on the site, then he needs to know this may place him at a bit of a disadvantage. There have been no formal studies or whitepapers done on this. I'm speaking from intuition. The inability to include an address will also bar the client from being able to create citations in certain places. He can, however, still create some citations. Here is a great article on this topic of which directories allow you to hide your address: http://www.localvisibilitysystem.com/2012/08/13/can-you-rank-well-in-local-google-without-revealing-your-street-address-anywhere/ Other than this, just be sure that the local campaign follows Google's guidelines. One thing that service radius business owners are sometimes confused about is whether they are able to create Google+ Local pages for all of the cities they served. The answer is, of course, a resounding 'no'. Just the one listing, based on the home address, but with the address hidden. And, they need to understand that their hopes of breaking into the Local pack of results will center on their city of location - not other cities where they serve. To gain visibility for those other cities, their efforts and goals will need to be organic, rather than local, in 9 out of 10 cases. Hope this helps!

Dana is correct - you need to ride the wave a little while Google looks at all of the changes and then recalculates where you should be. Something else, how have you been dealing with the duplicated content? If a change in content on landing pages has happened, it could be worth using CrazyEgg and looking at a heatmap of those pages to see where people are the most active. Can be a real eye-opener! Really need to know more about how the changes were made before we can look at other possible reasons. Andy

I agree Mat, but it's difficult to tell who is who. Client worked with a big name in the world of digital marketing. They checked references, put in place a carefully worded contract (phew!) and (thankfully) I had the knowledge to identify a well-hidden blog network, and secure link takedown. The SEO industry needs an aggressively policed quality standard, in my opinion.