When your website first comes out “live” to play, the last place you want it to be is in the Google Sandbox. Whilst some internet marketers might not agree that it actually exists, others claim that the search engine giant itself has admitted to creating the sandbox in defence of so many spamming websites cropping up all over the internet.
Defining The Google Sandbox
Rather than a place for toddlers to play, the sandbox is actually a filter. This filter is placed by Google bots on any website that is new. While there is no specific amount of time that a site is considered new, a probationary period of one to six months has been reported.
You will know when your site is in sandbox because your search engine ranking for keywords will not show an increase even after you’ve done all the proper optimisation such as developing incoming links, adding meta tags, and receiving lots of blog comments.
In other words, if you’ve reached a high Google page rank, yet the site’s position in the results for your most important keywords is low, that is a good indication of the Sandbox Effect.
Your site may still show up at the top of a page in the results for less competitive keywords. This is because these are seen as less likely to come from a spammer.
It is generally accepted that Google instituted this filtering system in March of 2004. It was after this date that entrepreneurs striving to get their websites to the top of search engine rankings quickly found that nothing seemed to work.
What Sites Go Into The Sandbox?
In fact, the more you do to optimise your site in its first few months, the more it will be targeted for dumping into the Google Sandbox. This is because often sites go up seemingly overnight with a high number of links. For a spamming site owner, this is done through black hat SEO techniques, which Google penalises. However, even if your marketing is strictly above reproach, you will pay the price because of a few bad apples in the barrel.
Another factor that Google bots appear to look at is the keywords being optimised. Those which are highly competitive, such as computers or iPhones or the like, are guaranteed to spend a longer period in the confines of the sandbox.
Keywords are ranked on a scale of popularity, and even those considered less competitive can result in sandbox probation, but the period will likely be shorter.
You Can Still Play While In The Sandbox
The only way your website is getting out of the Google Sandbox is after a particular period of time determined by Google. So while you’re there, why not continue to play?
For instance, there is no reason to postpone monetising your pages through affiliate marketing. It may take a bit longer to realise a good return, but you will have all the key components in place.
Do not give up on link building, adding fresh and relevant content, or any other marketing initiatives you are taking to increase traffic and ranking. It is never a waste of time, and it will actually save you time when your probationary period is up and you may be too busy to get to all those pesky tasks. As soon as you are out of the sandbox, then your site will be poised to reach the top immediately.
The best way to get out of the sandbox quickly is to place your site live before you are truly ready. That way, you can work on design and content at your leisure until Google will allow you to reach the top of the results pages for your targeted keywords. And if you’re in the sandbox right now, keep on doing what you know you need to and your efforts will pay off soon.
About Sean Rasmussen
So how do you know if you are in it or not?
Sorry forgot to ask this one.
Does the sandbox only apply to sites or does it extend to domains?
How about a site that gets put up but the domain has a bit of age?
Hi Sean,
I’m pretty sure my site has been in the Sandbox. One day it was ranked 1 in Google, the next day it was gone and I couldn’t find it at all. Then, I think it took a week or two and it was back at number 1 again. Crazy.
It’s a strange experience to have your site rank really well, just to disappear the next day. I still have trouble understanding what happened. Is there anything (besides keeping on going) that you can do about that??
To find out if you are in the sandbox, or if your pages are indexed, simply insert your homepage URL or post URL into a Google search and see if it appears in the listings. It it appears, my understanding is that it is not in fact in the sandbox. If you are, the best advice I can give is to continue working on your white hat SEO strategies to rectify the situation
Hi Sean
Seems like they even have the KGB crawling the web!.
I think it’s really weird that your site can end up in the sandbox even though you have explained here why it can happen. I am pleased that I read about this though because I haven’t yet got my blog out of the box yet let alone snatched by the sandybots.
The mind boggles…… can’t wait to read the next article.
I had to read this post a couple of times to get my head around what the google sandbox was exactly. I’m pretty sure my website is in it as one particular post I wrote -thanks to your lovely forum, had 12 comments on it plus all of the other seo tecniques you have taught us, and it still can’t be found. Although when I copy and paste my homepage URL into the search bar, my site does come up – in fact there is 75000 results for it.